It Only Hurts When I Breathe
by Scribbler
Summary: After Doma, Valon convinces a reluctant Mai to go for coffee with him. Just a coffee, he promises. No strings. Easier said than done considering how she dislikes him. Plus, someone's out to kill them for their part in Dartz's defeat. Awkward moments ahoy!
1. Breathe In

**Disclaimer **– Think of this as a game of jacks. The pieces themselves belong to Kazuki Takahashi, but the way they landed when I tossed them into the air is my doing.

**A/N** – This is part of an alternative universe I started in the fanfic _Variation on a Theme_. That fic explored what the YGO universe might have looked like if ten-year-old Yuugi gave away the Millennium Puzzle to cement his friendship with Anzu and she solved it instead of him. This fic comes after _Variation on a Theme_ (FFN ID: 2630951) and _Unforsaken_ (FFN ID: 2935491), but before _Hand of Friendship_ (FFN ID: 3027189) or _Fish Out of Troubled Water_ (FFN ID: 3365168). I think I may have to put together a proper continuity list at some point, as every time I believe I've left this universe behind I think of something else I want to write for it.

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_**It Only Hurts When I Breathe **_

© Scribbler, March 2008.

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_I played the fool today. _

_I just dream of vanishing into the crowd._

_Longing for home again –_

_Home is a feeling I buried in you._

_I'm all right, I'm all right; _

_It only hurts when I breathe. _

-- From _Breathe_ by Melissa Etheridge.

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**1. Breathe In**

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Mai wrapped her hands around her mug and stared into her coffee. She supposed she should've waited before ordering. Social niceties said it was rude to go out for coffee with someone and then drink yours before they even arrived. Still, social niceties could take a running jump. Today Mai was playing by her own rules and nobody else's.

She scowled at the fact she was even _here_. Since when did she bow to the whims of anyone but herself? True, she could name several times in the past few months when she'd done just that, but only for those she'd come to call friends, and none of them were meeting her for coffee.

There was a kid bawling its head off at the next table, while its mother consulted a glossy magazine and dipped biscotti into her latte without glancing at either mug or offspring. She hit her mark every time, betraying long practise as she chewed, swallowed and reached for another, eyes never leaving the page. A part of Mai wished she could block out the world so easily.

Mai settled further down in her seat. He wasn't late, so she didn't actually have any right to be angry, but she was anyway. The cheek of expecting her to keep her promise – a promise, she constantly pointed out, that had been made when she was trying to save a lost soul and thought the world would end within twenty-four hours – was enough to make her angry on its own, without him setting the stage in such a public place. That just added whipped cream and sprinkles to her boiling resentment.

The Domino City Mall was a hodgepodge of chain stores, family businesses and restaurants that vied for shoppers' attention though flashing lights, special offers and catchphrases. It was tackiness incarnate and both sounded and smelled like a war between a canteen and a rock concert. For someone like Mai, who'd spent the past few months hiding in her apartment (when she wasn't out saving the world, of course), it was the atmospheric equivalent of pulling her ribs out one by one and hitting herself over the head with them.

She consulted her watch. She was now only fifteen minutes early. The coffee was pretty good and she was glad she'd had one before he arrived. Rather than tense her up, the caffeine made her feel calmer and she drained the last of her mug with a satisfied gulp.

When she put it down, however, her satisfaction evaporated like steam.

"Hey."

"Valon." More of a statement than a greeting. He was early.

Valon winced theatrically. "You're not happy to see me?"

"Just sit down and let's get this over with."

He did sit, but his eyes frowned above his mouth's smile. "That's not really the mood I was going for."

"What did you expect – me to wrestle you to the floor in a hug of gratitude that you'd sacrifice your precious time for my benefit?"

"It'd be a start." He held up his good hand with the palm towards her. "Okay, okay, I get the hint."

"If you'd got the hint I wouldn't be here." Mai folded her arms and recrossed her legs. "This isn't a date," she informed him crisply.

"It isn't?"

"No. It's just me fulfilling the promise I made, since you kept up your half of the deal."

"And I've got the scars to prove it." Valon gestured, grinning, to his left arm, which was strapped across his chest in a sling. "In case you wee wondering, it does still work, I just have to rest it. Not much power to the old swing anymore – I went to the gym and the punch bag beat me up."

Rather than putting Mai at ease his grin only made her feel more irritated. So did seeing him in street clothes – in her mind she'd pictured him turning up in his Apocalyptic Biker outfit. It would've been easier to hate him and forget what the others had said while he looked like a reject from a bad gay porn movie. Now she realised that would've been ridiculous, but the sight of him in shirt and jeans made her uncomfortable. He looked like a regular guy meeting a lady friend for an innocent coffee.

"Just because you got hurt doesn't make this a date," she replied.

Valon sighed and shrugged, then winced. Rubbing absently at his left shoulder, he nodded compliance. "All right, it's not a date. So what is it?"

"A psycho stalker living out his sick fantasy?"

"Ouch." For a moment the corners of his mouth turned down. "Is that how you really see me?"

"No. I _really_ see you as an arrogant asshole with a conscience that decided to wake up at the very last second, who happens to have the habits of a stalker, which he passed off as 'just doing his job' while working for the biggest megalomaniac psycho on the planet and casually ignoring the damage that immortal psycho was doing by passing it off as inevitable collateral damage. But that's too much of a mouthful to say all the time."

For a moment Valon seemed to falter. His comeback was still sharp, but the timing was fractionally off. "Technically Dartz wasn't immortal; he'd just lived a really, really long time." He paused. "A _really_ long time. But he wasn't immortal. I'm surprised you forgot that."

"Don't. Push. It." She narrowed her eyes at him. She may have turned up, but she wasn't going to make this easy. Perhaps she wasn't as diamond-sharp as she'd once been, but neither was she a complete pushover.

When she first mentioned how Valon had asked her out, Anzu wasn't as outraged as Mai expected. Instead, the younger girl went very quiet, eventually saying in a thoughtful voice that Mai should accept. To Mai's increasing horror, Yuugi, Ryou and Otogi agreed. It was just a coffee, after all, and Valon _had_ helped them against Dartz when it really counted. He'd even gotten hurt in the process, and getting hurt to protect someone was like a rite of passage for friendship with them.

Naturally, Mai had tossed her head and proclaimed them all idiots.

"He risked a lot to help us," Yuugi had pointed out. He should know. He was there, even though he wasn't firing on all cylinders at the time. "And a lot of that was because of you, Mai, not us. The guy lost his soul for you. It's not asking too much to repay him with one date." He'd said this with a combination of gentle chiding and apprehension, every pore aware that for Mai, whose breakdown after Battle City was as spectacular as it was devastating, it may well be asking too much.

She'd told them what Valon said to her outside the trailer, that morning after the Oricalchos claimed Anzu's soul in place of Yami's. Valon had approached Mai with an offer to work against the very organisation he'd served up to then, citing no other reason than Mai's own wellbeing. He said he didn't care about her friends or the more philosophical reasons for fighting against Dartz, just her. Trembling with rage, Mai had told them how, when she was at her lowest after Malik, right before _they _found and dragged her back from the edge and long before Dartz made his first move against them, Valon was watching her from the shadows with the intent of bringing her into Doma.

"He said it was to heal me," she'd spat, skin still crawling with the idea of being secretly observed at her most vulnerable. She'd lived too long with her image of self-sufficiency. Even her friends' working their way under that veneer wasn't enough to let her accept just _anyone_ seeing her weak. "Apparently when you joined Dartz he wiped away your doubts and fears with his magic. As if I'd ever agree to let more magic mess with my head?" She'd injected more vehemence into her tone than strictly necessary. A tiny part of her – the part that still sometimes dreamed of drowning in sand – couldn't be sure she _wouldn't_ have tried anything to escape the nightmares and crippling anxiety in the wake of Malik's mental torture.

"But Valon fought for you," Ryou had said softly. He said most things softly, though he rarely said anything that wasn't worth listening to. "He jeopardised everything to keep you safe. Remember how he fought Raphael on your behalf when he challenged you because you had Hermos?"

"Valon took over for you even though he knew he wasn't strong enough to beat him without the Oricalchos," said Yuugi. "He refused to play that card even when Raphael tried to force his hand."

"Even Yami couldn't resist that temptation," Anzu had interjected. "That shows strength of character. Right? Maybe he's not such a bad guy after all. Maybe he just had some bad breaks and made some bad choices. Like any of us are fit to judge about something like that?"

Feeling pressganged, Mai had grumbled and turned her face away, discouraged but not dissuaded.

Now their words replayed in her head as she looked across the table at Valon. Without the metal straps, the studs, the bike or the body armour she realised he was actually quite small. She'd always suspected he was shorter than her, but his chest was thinner than she'd imagined, and his biceps were hidden beneath his shirtsleeves giving the impression of slimness. His hair wafted crazily with no goggles to hold it back. He pushed it out of his eyes as he signalled to a waitress but it fell right back again as soon as he let go.

Yet despite this softness there was a kind of wiry strength to him, as if his whole body was a knuckle. The waitress noticed it too and obviously found it attractive. She shot Mai a withering look her customer relations manager would have reprimanded her for, curling her lip at Mai's neckline and figure. Mai took her own total lack of jealousy as a good sign. She lived for competition. She was the type of person who revved other cars at stoplights and got a thrill when beating any opponent, but she couldn't be bothered to do more than stare blankly at the pretty waitress with her Barbie curves and proprietary touch of Valon's arm. She was welcome to him.

Valon ordered a mocha but asked Mai what she wanted instead if picking something for her. After the waitress was gone he leaned on the back of his hand and smirked. "So, time for smalltalk. How've you been?"

His eyes were, Mai thought, invasive and smug. Her spirit shook inside her like a small hot flame. Couldn't this be _over_ already?

She leaned back in her seat, purposefully putting distance between them as he leaned further forwards. She wanted her signals to be absolutely clear – even if he hadn't taken any notice of them so far. Maybe the waitress would see and make a play for him. The sooner someone else distracted Valon, the better. "You only specified coffee. That brief never said I have to actually _talk _to you."

"Spoilsport. But seriously, how have you been? How's the little brunette – Ainzu, was it?"

"Anzu." Mai inspected her nails. "She's as fine as can be expected, considering she had her soul sucked out and almost fed to a monster lizard."

"Exactly why I asked."

Mai's index finger twitched involuntarily. Oh yeah, he was speaking from experience, wasn't he? "Anzu's fine," she said flatly. "Everybody's fine."

"That's good to hear. I got quite attached to that lot while we were allies."

"I thought you didn't care about them. You said they weren't the reason you switched sides."

"Well that was before I got to know them, wasn't it? They're a nice bunch. Close. Very loyal. They saved my bacon while I was on their side."

"Meaning you're not anymore?"

"You're looking to trip me up, but it won't happen." Valon wagged a finger at her. "Truth is I've gone straight. Since you saw me last I've broken off all connections with the Paradias Organisation. I don't even live in the house they provided anymore. I'm a free agent – master of my own destiny." A melodramatic wave accompanied this statement, robbing it of any gravity. "I've barely talked to Raphael or Amelda since Dartz's defeat. They're both travelling the world trying to find themselves now they don't have a big mission to give their lives purpose." He shrugged like it was no skin off his nose whether they succeeded or not. Valon seemed to treat most things like they were no skin off his nose. Moments when he showed actual emotion, beyond mild amusement or unease, were isolated and infrequent.

Mai pushed away a recollection of his eyes, wide and dark like a smashed Precious Moments doll when he finally found the strength and a good enough reason to yank off his Oricalchos ring and throw it into the ocean. If he hadn't done that he might've been able to break out of Raphael's duel the way he used its power to punch the green dome covering Yuugi and drag him, unconscious, from a duel he couldn't win. Yuugi was so bereft without Anzu he'd made a stupid decision to challenge Raphael when they found him, but Valon rescued him and the shock of nearly losing another friend snapped Yami from his mawkish stupor. From that moment it was like having the old Yami back – the driven Yami who chafed against Anzu as she kept him in check, instead of the self-pitying, withdrawn version they'd been left with after she disappeared.

Yet Valon had been emphatic about getting rid of the ring even though it lost him his edge against their enemy. Mai didn't understand at the time, and understood only a little more now.

"So where do you live now?" This wasn't idle interest. Mai was worried that Valon, like a true stalker, would set up home in her neighbourhood since he knew where it was. She'd just got settled again and didn't like the idea of moving, but she would if she had to.

Valon seemed to know her thoughts. "I moved to Rubik City. I work over there now, too. This trip to Domino was a long way out of my territory, but worth it." His voice dropped on this last sentence, and there was an underlying sincerity Mai wanted to distrust but felt more discomfited by.

Her eyes ticked from him back to her nails, each one long and red and perfectly formed. She'd been to the manicurist for the first time in ages, determined to give the impression she was in complete control – unlike the last time they saw each other. Back then her nails were scuffed and chipped, several torn from clinging to cliffs and stealing Raphael's bike so she didn't have to rely on Valon to escape Dartz's monstrous army.

It was more difficult than she'd expected. Valon wrong-footed her. She was trying really, really hard to maintain the hate that was so easy to rouse while he wasn't there. Staring at her living room wall, talking to Anzu, Yuugi, Ryou and Otogi, organising her Duel Monsters deck – these were all activities in which it was simple to summon a belly-scorching disgust for Valon. He was one of the bad guys. He'd seen her breakdown and almost turned her to the darkness because of it. He'd stolen who knew how many souls for Dartz before turning against him for all the wrong motives. Those were good reasons to hate him.

Except that watching him accept his mocha and tip the waitress, awkwardly pushing money into her hand because of his sling, she was reminded of how he got that injury. She recalled the horrific 'crack' when Raphael, crazed with the realisation that Dartz had caused his family's deaths and shouting that it couldn't be true, pinned the arm Valon had already injured rescuing Yuugi against a stone pillar and slammed his fist down on the joint. As bearer of this bad news Valon endured the full force of Raphael's meltdown. Valon's scream was unearthly and terrible, and she remembered the way Seto Kaiba slammed into Raphael before he could do any more damage. As if that wasn't starling enough (Seto Kaiba showing concern for another human being who wasn't his brother?), she also remembered the way Valon pushed Yuugi's helping hands away so he could duel Raphael to stop him attacking their group in his grief-stricken madness. That duel gave Mai and the others the chance they needed to reach Dartz's central chamber, and Valon's pain and sacrifice were enough to convince everyone he really had turned to the side of good – everyone, that is, except Mai.

Her dislike of him was a combination of anger that he'd worked for Dartz and resentment that he'd seen her at her weakest. Irrational, perhaps, but no less potent for it. Unlike Anzu, Yuugi, Ryou, Otogi or even Yami, who had also seen her when she was little more than a slowly putrefying ball of despair, Mai objected to Valon knowing what she'd been through after Malik. He had planned to take advantage of her weakness to recruit her for Dartz and that, more than anything, she found unforgivable.

Well, she grudgingly admitted, maybe not just to recruit her for Dartz. At the time he'd honestly believed the Oricalchos was key to solving major emotional torture. During their battle against Doma Valon had learned for himself that this wasn't true. Like Mai, he'd finally had to face up to whatever had driven him into Dartz's clutches on his own, without the Oricalchos's twisted magic to cushion the blow. She still didn't know what had made him think Doma was the answer in the first place, but what followed when he broke out from under its influence and threw away his ring had mirrored her own struggle to reconcile herself with her scarred emotions. That should have endeared him to her, but instead something about Valon prodded the part of her personality that demanded she be the Strong Woman Who Took No Crap. It was hard to maintain that image knowing he'd seen her on her knees screaming at the world.

"_**O**__**nce upon a time I believed I was the best hope you had of getting your life back."**_

That was what Valon said when he revealed how he'd been in her life far longer than she'd realised. Mai shook the memory away, focussing instead on the embers of her anger. She picked up her fresh cappuccino and blew steam off it, pursing her lips with their carefully applied non-smear, extra-gloss, red-as-her-nails lipstick. Red was a vibrant colour, not wishy-washy like pastel, chilly like blue, or falsely cheerful like yellow. Red bespoke danger. Women who wore red could take care of themselves and had no need of knights in armour – either tarnished or shining.

Silence stretched between them for a few minutes. Valon fetched handfuls of tiny milks and creamers, holding each one up to his mouth to tear the foil with his teeth before dumping them into his drink. His arm was much better, but because the joint had been severely damaged it demanded rest. He told her he'd developed lots of little ways to get by with only one hand, filling in the gaps left by her silence, and then asked if her coffee was nice. Mai only grunted in reply.

"I used to come here a lot when Dartz had us watching the God Cards," Valon said. "Raphael and Amelda hated it. They were so focussed on the big mission they didn't have time for something unrelated like coffee. It was always work, work, work with them – if it wasn't for the good of Doma they only spent the bare minimum of time on it. That included eating and sleeping. You ever tried to eat an egg roll while doing seventy on a motorcycle?" He swirled the liquid in his cup and stared into it, as though he could see images of his past in the foam.

"Were you watching Anzu for long?"

"Long enough."

"Is that how you found me the first time?"

"No. I thought I already told you that part. I saw you on TV when you were in Kaiba Corp.'s Battle City Tournament. Dartz didn't order me to bring you in; I sought you out on my own because I honestly thought the power of the Oricalchos could help you forget your pain. Of course," his voice turned grim, "that was before I appreciated just how much the Oricalchos was doing my thinking for me. I never really thanked you for that, did I?"

"What?" Mai was confused.

"I wanted to bring you into the fold to save you, but it ended up you saving me by bringing me _out_ of the fold. You already know I didn't originally turn against Dartz because I disagreed with his beliefs. I left because I didn't want you to be hurt. As it turned out, I did – _do_ – disagree with his beliefs, I just didn't know it at the time because the Oricalchos had such a hold over me. It was insidious, that thing." His words carried the ring of something repeated so often it had melted into bitter acceptance. He closed his eyes and rolled his shoulders as though shrugging off the memory. It wasn't quite a shiver, but gave the same impression. "The influence _you_ had over me was that bit stronger than the Oricalchos, and just strong enough that I could finally figure out what was wrong with what I'd been doing with my life up to that point. So thank you." He chuckled. "You kind of saved my life as well as my soul."

Mai didn't know what to say to that. His bare-faced openness was confusing – especially in public. She hadn't had to tease the admission from him; had barely shown any interest before he confessed something so personal it would've caught in her own gullet like a shard of bone. She glanced around at the other customers of the coffee shop while thoughts flew around her head like a flock of bewildered sparrows.

Memories woke and yawned and unfolded: Valon's stricken expression after he took Yami and Kaiba into Paradias Headquarters to look up its hidden history; the way he yelled cryptically at Raphael that Dartz had been behind everything; the motor-oil-and-dust smell of him slung across the front of Raphael's bike when she rescued him from a Doma monster soldier; his face, pale and drawn, as he was stretchered away to have his arm set before she followed Anzu into yet another of Seto Kaiba's tournaments. She'd tried hard to forget all about Valon until the phone call a week ago when he asked if he could cash in her promise to meet him for coffee.

His voice broke her from her thoughts. "'Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster'."

"What?"

"Friedrich Nietzsche. It seemed appropriate. Plus it makes me sound smart." His wink ruined the solemnity of the moment.

Mai used to be good at being coy, but now she no longer had the stomach for it. Convalescence, the apocalypse and being chosen to wield Hermos had made her face several important issues about who she was and wasn't. "Why did you join Dartz?"

For a moment Valon looked shocked that her brazenness was more brazen than his brazenness. He paused with his lips pressed to his cup but nothing going past them. Then, slowly, he put it down so gently it made no noise against the tabletop. "That's a long story."

"And that's a cop out."

"This isn't actually what I'd planned on talking about when I asked to meet you."

"Tough. This isn't what I'd planned to do with my Saturday afternoon, but I'm here."

"I suppose it's my fault for bringing up the subject. Don't you want to discuss politics, or fashion, or movies or something?"

"No."

"Not even movies?"

"I don't watch movies."

"Duel Monsters, then. Found any good cards lately?"

"You tell me. Haven't you been watching me again?"

"You really _aren't_ going to make this easy, are you?"

"Should I? You aren't making yourself any easier for me to understand."

Valon shrugged "What's to understand? I used to be a bad guy and now I'm not. It's your basic average redemption story."

"If it was so basic and average you'd have no problem telling me why you joined Doma."

"Touché." He raised his mug. "You're definitely one in a million, Mai."

That wasn't remotely a proper answer. It didn't even make proper sense. It sounded like he'd stolen it from a Hallmark movie and used it to shut her up.

She levelled a look at him that was colder than Midwinter. At the North Pole. During the Ice Age. "I already know all about your buddies, Raphael and Amelda."

"I bet you don't. Not even _I _knew everything about them and I worked side by side with them for years."

"At least they took the time to talk to Anzu and the rest of us and apologise for what they put us through. It didn't make everything better, but it helped us understand where they were coming from."

Valon looked unconvinced. "Hm. One thing I do know about those two is that they play their cards pretty close to their chests – and don't worry, I won't hold it against you for not laughing at my witty pun. The whole time I knew them they fobbed me off with half-truths and discouraged any interest I showed in their lives before Doma. Amelda was always this fizzing ball of angst but never said more than 'Must find Kaiba, ug, Kaiba evil, ug, Amelda smash evil Kaiba, ug ug,' and Rafael had the emotional range of an orthopaedic shoe. Until he had his meltdown in Dartz's temple, I thought his catalogue went all the way from serious to grim. They're not exactly the carey-sharey types. If they told you anything it was an edited version."

"They told us enough. They explained how Dartz fooled them into working for him by promising them things he could never provide."

"Like a house with a picket fence and kids on the lawn?"

"Like payback, except he neglected to mention payback doesn't make pain go away." Mai remembered finding the Ishtars' phone number in Anzu's house, copying it down and holding it in one hand and a phone in the other for a whole night. "But you were already gone by then. I never got even an edited version of your story. Considering you _stalked_ me, I would've thought you, especially, would want to get your side of the story across."

However, rather than inspire him to answer, her words instead inspired him to chug his mocha and keep up a sphinx-like silence while he smacked his lips. "This place does a good mocha," he said approvingly, as if she hadn't spoken. "When it has enough milk in it, of course. I never understood how Raphael could drink his coffee black. Straight black, no frills, practically just water with caffeine in it. Blech."

You could skate on Mai's stare, though he refused to meet it. "Why is this such a difficult question to answer?"

"I told you: it's a long story and not one I really want to go into right now."

"Amelda and Raphael -"

"I already told you that, too: I haven't spoken to them since Atlantis. Whatever they did or didn't say to you doesn't bother me. In fact, good for them if they finally pulled the corks out of their butts." Valon plunked his empty mug on the table, stuffed his serviette into it and abruptly pushed back his chair. "Let's go for a walk."

Mai snorted. "Just coffee. That was the agreement."

"Aw, c'mon. Just one itty bitty little walk?"

"Will you tell me if I do?"

"Wouldn't you do it just for the pleasure of my company?"

"Pfft."

Valon frowned. "You still really don't like me, do you?"

"Why should I? And that was a rhetorical question."

He closed his mouth. "I always said you were a tough cookie. I guess I never realised you were such a stale one, too. Isn't it against the Good Guy Code to hold grudges?"

"Good Guy Code?"

"Yeah, you know, the unwritten rules for how to be a good guy – all that stuff about being noble, defending the weak and making the right choice even if it's not in your own best interests. The Good Guy Code."

"There isn't any code." Though life would probably be easier if there _were_. For people like Anzu, Yuugi and Ryou those rules seemed built in at bone level – the correct impulses came instinctively to them. Present them with a situation that called for them to play the hero and they filled the role without even thinking about it. For people like her or Otogi, who'd been selfish their whole lives, or like Yami, who'd grown up with a totally different set of values, those rules had to be learned and the learning curve was steep. Only one wrong move for it to be game over and there no practise range, just situation after situation where they were supposed to already _know_ how to be heroes.

"Really?" Valon scratched his chin. "I could've sworn it took up the first few pages of the Hero Handbook."

Mai snorted again. "Idiot."

"That's good enough for me." He ambled away.

Mai stayed exactly where she was. She had no intention of following him. As far as she was concerned, her part in Valon's life was over and the coffee rings on their table provided a full stop to that chapter of her own story, too. Doma was disbanded; Dartz had been defeated; Anzu and all the other lost souls had been returned to their bodies or finally released into the afterlife. There really was no excuse for things not to move on from the whole ugly, messy business.

She realised her foot was bouncing in irritation and uncrossed her legs to tuck her feet under her chair. She'd barely touched her own drink but found she'd lost the taste for it.

"Damn it." Mai grabbed her bag and tossed some change onto the table.

Valon was propping up the wall outside. He smirked and Mai resisted the urge to slap it off his face.

"Going my way?"

"Buzz off, creep."

He shrugged and moved away, apparently confident she'd follow. Mai deliberately walked in the other direction, towards the escalators, though slowly so he could catch up with her. Sure enough, a few seconds later she heard his feet clunk into place behind her. He didn't say anything, but a small fierce smile turned up her lips. Valon didn't hold as many aces as he liked to think.

"So where are we walking to?" he asked.

"Philosophically or actually?"

"Just promise me no shoe stores. I don't do shoe stores."

"I should go into Shooz just to spite you," she said sarcastically.

"Well, I suppose I could use some new chains for my boots. I haven't ridden my bike in an age but I'll need some for when I finally get back on the thing."

Mai wrinkled her nose in disgust at his capriciousness.

"So why'd you decide to go with me?" Valon avoided a stroller and used the flat of his good hand to catch the door Mai didn't hold open.

Mai shrugged, unable to answer.

"I knew it – you don't hate me as much as you make out. I'll bet under that icy exterior you actually kind of like me."

"I never said that. I want closure, and for that I need to understand why the hell a person like you would join Doma."

"A person like me?"

"Don't get any funny ideas. You're a creep and a stalker, and probably a borderline psycho, but you showed enough concern for the wellbeing of another person to put your own life in danger. You tried to convince Raphael not to duel, tried to make him not use the Oricalchos so you could save his soul, then sacrificed yourself to save people you barely knew. On the other hand for a long time you took an unhealthy pleasure in _stealing_ souls just because you got some sick thrill from winning when the stakes were so high. You're inconsistent."

"I'm a loveable screwball."

"You're screwy, but you're not remotely loveable." Mai refused to look at him, too busy trying not to think about what made people revel in the pain of some and want to save others from equal amounts of pain. "The people whose souls you stole for Dartz, were any of them like me?"

"What?" Valon was baffled. "How do you mean?"

"In breakdown territory."

He went quiet.

"Is that a yes?"

"That's a maybe. I don't remember. Perhaps some of them weren't quite in their right minds – what kind of person accepts a challenge to duel with their soul on the line if they lose? Don't get the wrong idea, Mai," he said seriously, "I never hunted for exceptionally vulnerable people. For the most part Dartz picked out targets for us and we went after them. We didn't ask questions, even if we did question our target – which was rare. If someone was on our hit list they had to have done something really wrong and be really evil; it wasn't like we just randomly picked people off the street. We trusted in Dartz's judgement and in the power of the Oricalchos that worked through him. You have to understand that as far as we were concerned, we really were cleansing the world of impure souls. It was all for the greater good."

"'Cleansing the world'?" The disgust in Mai's voice was like bubbling stomach acid and tasted just as bitter. All at once she regretted not just waiting out his patience in the coffee shop. She quickened her step, automatically turned his feet in the direction of the elevator to the parking lot where she'd left her Cadillac. "That sounds a lot like genocide to me. And not one of you ever made the connection between that and what you were doing?"

Valon stopped in his tracks.

Mai paused a few steps in front of him, glancing over her shoulder but not turning.

"It wasn't always just the three of us," Valon said softly. "Working for Dartz, I mean. It was a worldwide operation. Three was never going to be enough for all that needed to be done."

"Yeah, you used to be a foursome. I remember that guy Anzu defeated when you stole the God Cards."

However, Valon shook his head. "That's not what I meant. There were others before that. The roster changed constantly, that's why it wasn't a good idea to get too attached to anyone. Sometimes Doma Riders lost their duels and had their souls absorbed by the Oricalchos, but sometimes … there _were_ a couple who doubted Dartz and the mission during my tenure, and probably more before I joined. Dartz was operating for millennia before any of us were born, so there _had_ to be."

"What happened to them?" Mai asked, just as soft.

"You couldn't leave Doma." He raised his eyes and fixed her with a meaningful look.

Mai didn't know what to say to that. Valon possessed a penetrating stare that belied how playful and annoying he could also be. Right now he was watching her with the concentration of a tanker of chemicals covered in bright yellow hazard stickers.

"We weren't a team in the traditional sense," he said, "especially not in the way you people were. Are. We worked together, sometimes lived together if the situation demanded it, but we weren't what you'd call 'friends'. We didn't look out for each other unless it made sense for the mission."

An image slid into Mai's mind like a cat slipping through a gap that should have been far too small to admit it: Valon facing off against Raphael, yelling at the taller Rider to try and stop him from duelling. She also recalled Raphael's confusion. If Doma didn't encourage attachment beyond getting the job done, it was no wonder Raphael hadn't thought twice about challenging Valon for his soul when he found out Valon had turned rogue. The Oricalchos still had enough of a grip over Raphael's mind to dictate his actions and, muddled with grief and denial over Valon's news that Dartz caused the death of his family, Raphael must have seen Valon's actions as the ultimate betrayal. Even if he no longer trusted Dartz, Raphael's mind was twisted up with misguided, dizzying loyalty to the Oricalchos itself.

"Is that why you wanted to recruit me; so you had an ally? Did you figure that if I saw you as my saviour you'd have a friend instead of just another co-worker?"

Valon sighed. "I see we're heading for the parking lot. You plan to leave me so soon? I thought we were going shopping."

Mai started walking again. "You're really good at not answering my questions."

"So are you. Here's one from you to me: Why did you agree to meet with me if you hate me so much?"

"Anzu. Yuugi and Ryou, too. And Otogi. They all reckon you're not such a bad guy. I, on the other hand, have yet to be convinced."

"You must think _something_ of me if you were willing to meet me on your own without them as back-up."

Mai grunted, non-committal.

"I think a lot of you, Mai."

"Don't do that," she snapped.

"Do what?"

"Make out that you have normal feelings for me. Nothing about you, or this, is normal. I'm done pretending things aren't what they actually are in my life, and I'm not making any exception for you."

"Is that something you picked up in therapy?"

"Fuck you."

Valon's neck twitched, as though her words had hit him like a slap to the face – which was ridiculous because she'd shouted much worse before and he'd always shrugged it off. That was the thing about Valon; no matter what she said, how badly she treated him or told him to his face that he was a scumbag, he just kept coming back for more. He really did seem obsessed with her. Mai waited for the familiar shiver to trace her spine … and was surprised when it didn't.

"How we met may not exactly be the personal ads, Mai, but don't misunderstand me – when I say I like you I mean it. The Oricalchos messed up my head for a while, but it never got to that part of me."

"And I'm supposed to believe that? You _stalked_ me! You watched my apartment. How else would you know the condition I was in to even _consider_ me for Doma?"

A pair of old ladies carrying voluminous shopping bags looked at them curiously. Despite being indoors, each wore what appeared to be a sheet of cellophane that held their blue-rinsed curls tight against their skulls. One whispered to the other and Mai knew she must've heard, but they scurried away like mice when she treated them to the full force of her glare.

Mai's heels clicked against the floor as she headed for a busier area of the mall and threaded her way through crowds of people to the elevator. "You saw my suffering as an excuse to get yourself an ally. Anzu and the others may have been late to the party, but at least when they arrived they _helped_ me. They didn't do it because they wanted an extra member of their group; they did it because they genuinely wanted me to get better. By your own admission what you wanted was self-interested, and I have nothing more to say to you. Thank you for all your help against Dartz, now get the hell out of my life."

"Mai -"

"Save it for someone who doesn't know who you are, Valon." Mai slapped the button for the elevator but, antsy with Valon right behind her and suddenly imagining being trapped in a small space with him, she instead yanked open the door to the stairwell and clattered down the steps two at a time. She listened, but there was no second slam to indicate he'd followed her.

She travelled the three floors to ground level and reached her car without mishap. Inexplicably breathless, she spent a moment leaning against it. The metal door felt smooth, comfortable and familiar under her splayed palms.

When she bought the Corvette it was a status symbol after finally breaking into the big time on the European Duel Monsters circuit. Everyone around her got themselves Bentleys, BMWs, Ferraris and Lamborghinis, wowing their fans with lavish displays of money they didn't have or had sold out to receive in advertising revenue. Mai saved up her winnings and bought the car she'd admired in American movies since she was a kid. It was a beautiful sleek red when she got it and screamed 'male-mid-life-crisis-mobile'. All it needed was an airhead blonde in the passenger seat and some Led Zeppelin. In an act of ownership that also made her take up her skirt hems and tighten her bodice laces, Mai paid to have it painted lurid purple like her favourite outfits and added furry dice to the rear view mirror. For others this would've been tacky and cheap, but Mai took this tackiness and stood over it with a glare like a metal-plated baseball bat. She owned it so completely that it became admirable instead. It was how she'd always lived her life – single-handedly and by her own rules – right up until the moment Malik sealed her up in her own mind and left her to die on the battlefield.

Mai dropped her head, gathering her thoughts and emotions. There was no point having a road accident because she wasn't thinking clearly before she got behind the wheel.

It was over. Atlantis, Doma, the Oricalchos and everything that went with it – it was finally, officially _over_. She'd fulfilled her promise, and if there was no real sense of closure with Valon then that was something she was just going to have to live with.

Mostly satisfied, or at least telling herself she was, Mai thrust a hand into her jacket pocket for her car keys. It took three tries to get them into the lock but once inside the car she took a deep breath, switched on the fan and made for home.

* * *

_**To Be Continued…**_

* * *

**Side-flings, Homages and Downright Rip-offs**

_**Mai pushed away a recollection of his eyes, wide and dark like a smashed Precious Moments doll when he finally found the strength and a good enough reason to yank off his Oricalchos ring and throw it into the ocean.**_

-- Precious Moments is widely known as a series of collectible porcelain bisque figurines. The original artwork was created by the American illustrator Sam Butcher in the 1970s and the dolls are all young children with distinctive teardrop-shaped eyes. They're maudlin as hell, and I can't decide which disturb me more; Precious Moments or Hummel figurines. For all they corner the market in cutesy kiddies I find them all quite soulless (not helped by the fact my mother adores Hummel so I have lots of austere little eyes staring down at me from her wall-mounted plates while I'm trying to watch telly). Additionally, that ring would be the same ring which, in the canon anime, Valon used to rescue Mai from her duel against Jounouchi when she started to lose control.

"_**I moved to Rubik City."**_

-- Fanonical location I've used a couple of times before. I figure that if the gang live in Domino, perhaps the other towns around it have similar game-themed names. Rubik obviously referring to that damn Rubik's Cube I started as a child and _still_ can't solve).

_**Valon's expression when he learned Dartz had set fire to some church in downtown Edogawa.**_

-- Edogawa (江戸川区) is one of the twenty-three special wards that make up Tokyo. It takes its name from the river that runs from north to south along the eastern edge of the ward. Edogawa actually has a sister-city relationship with Gosford, New South Wales, in Australia which, coupled with Edogawa's dense population, crowded municipality and Valon's (very dodgy) Australian-by-way-of-Cocky-London accent in the dub, made Edogawa an appropriate place for him to be from, I felt.

* * *


	2. Hold Your Breath

**A/N:** A comprehensive list of fics from this alternative universe can now be found at obabscribbler. livejournal. com / 301313. html

* * *

_And I can't ask for things to be still again;_

_No I can't ask if I could walk through the world in your eyes._

_Longing for home again –_

_Home is a feeling I buried in you._

-- From _Breathe_ by Melissa Etheridge.

* * *

**2. Hold Your Breath**

* * *

Mai was sailing down Checker Street when she noticed a battered MG Metro getting too close to her rear bumper. It was amazing the thing was even roadworthy, since it seemed held together with chewing gum and good wishes, yet it kept up with Mai and dogged her tail. Frowning, she slowed and pulled over to let it pass, but it didn't. Instead it also slowed. Mai twitched her rear view mirror, signalling that the other driver should overtake, but it gave no response and stayed where it was.

She sped up again. So did the MG. When she braked at the stoplights that led onto Sudoku Avenue it pulled up beside her in the lane to turn and she glanced across at it.

_Idiot_.

The driver was an older man, hair thinning into a widow's peak on top but dominating his chin and upper lip like he'd been created upside down and had pubic hair growing out of his face. He was staring straight at her and Mai got the distinct impression she knew him from somewhere, though she couldn't imagine where. He sort of resembled her Uncle Sakumo, who got drunk at the wake for her parents' funeral, complained about having to pay condolence money for a cousin he hadn't seen since she married, and then told Mai she had nice 'baby tits' right before she spent the night keeping traditional vigil over her mother and father's bodies. She hadn't seen him since and her memories were too blurry with angry tears to be sure this was who she was looking at now.

The man blinked at her. He didn't wave or smile. Mai stared at him, but snapped her head forward when the Volvo behind her parped its horn. The lights had changed and Mai pulled away with the embarrassment of one who hadn't noticed right away. The growl of the Corvette's engine sounded absurdly loud, as though she'd been trying to make a point when she hadn't.

The MG cut across lanes, cars beeping around it, to get back into its spot behind her. It tailed Mai long enough to make her uncomfortable. Maybe she was still ill at ease after dealing with Valon, but something felt wrong. Her skin crawled and all the hairs on the back of her neck stood up.

She put the feeling to the test. Turning from the direction she really wanted, she steered her way through a series of awkward corners, around blocks she'd already passed and even chanced going the wrong way down a deserted one-way street. She used to drive alone at night to get away from her apartment and the sleepless nights there, so she was well versed in Domino's road system without ever having look at a map.

The MG followed like a barnacle attached to the hull of a ship and Mai's uneasiness grew into alarm. Who _was_ this guy, and why was he willing to take such risks to follow her? There were several legitimate explanations, but given the nature of Mai's life all hers veered towards the arcane.

She fumbled in her bag on the seat next to her, trying to locate her cell-phone without crashing into a lamppost. As a rule she hated phones, having always preferred not to be contactable when she chose. She liked to be in control at all times, but Anzu had insisted she carry one after one time when, still in the early stages of convalescence, Mai ventured out to the store for milk and was found some time later crouching next to a dumpster, holding her head and crying for reasons even she couldn't explain.

"C'mon. _C'mon_!" The connection clicked and buzzed. "Come _on_ -"

"Hello?"

"Anzu."

She must've been waiting for this call because she didn't sound surprised. "Mai! How did it go with Valon? You're calling pretty early -"

"No time to explain now, I'm headed home but some guy in a really crappy car is following me. I think I recognise him but I don't know where from."

"Are you sure?"

"As surely as bears sh-"

"Okay, okay, I get it. What do you want me to do?"

"Where are you?"

"I'm at Yuugi's. We figured the Game Shop is closer to the mall than my house. Not that we thought you couldn't cope on your own, we just -"

"I get it. 'We' being you, Yuugi and Ryou?"

"And Otogi."

Of _course_ they were all gathered together. Otogi had been really busy with his company since their return from America. The bodyguards his investors appointed were a bunch of bozos, but they were a more tenacious breed of bozo after he kept giving the last set the slip. Yet Anzu must've convinced him to wait with them while Mai confronted Valon. Anzu championed teamwork and friendship as more than just words – though she had plenty of them to spend as well. Part of Mai rumbled with pleasure that she had people like them in her life, and the part of her personality that used to hate needing others for _anything_ grew smaller still.

"I'll come to you," said Mai.

"Is this a magical type situation?"

"I'm not sure. Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe I'm just overreacting again."

"We'll be ready. Uh, Mai?"

"Yeah?" Mai glanced in the mirror again. Yup, the MG was still behind her. It was a little demeaning to be caught in a bad cop movie cliché with the ugliest car on the planet.

"Is … Valon with you?"

"No."

"Oh. Okay." Was that disappointment in Anzu's voice?

Mai disconnected with a curt, "I'll see you in a minute." She tossed the cell phone on top of her bag, faintly irritated by the end of the conversation but swiftly distracted by the MG's driver. The other car had pulled alongside her and edged sideways, forcing her towards the sidewalk.

Mai's teeth gritted. She sped up, pulling back into the middle of her lane, but despite being old and rusty the MG kept up with her shiny Corvette. In her efforts to lose the other car Mai had gone into a quieter area near the waterfront and now regretted the decision.

At one time in Domino's history this was a thriving industrial area. Now all the industry had vacated or drastically downsized and the rotting carcasses of factories and warehouses produced an ambience similar to what you might find in post-war Bosnia. Derelict warehouses lined the street, staring down with smashed-window eyes that glittered like a snake's. There was nobody around to see what he was up to and she got the feeling she'd played into someone's hands

"Damn it." She accelerated even more, unwilling to allow her mistake to be more than a minor inconvenience. Domino was a small city; you were never more than five minutes away from a main road.

Which was when the MG rammed into her from the side, forcing her onto the sidewalk. The steering wheel ripped sideways out of Mai's hands as her tyres bumped over the kerbstones. She grappled for control and the Corvette slewed, clipping a street lamp with one taillight and barely missing a wall. Her bag and the discarded cell phone skittered off the seat and into the foot-well of the passenger side. Mai stamped on the brake, turning the wheel as she did so. She fishtailed back out onto the asphalt, screeching to a halt in front of the MG, which was blocking the narrow street.

On instinct Mai threw her car into reverse, but the MG surged forward at an angle and forced her to go further back than she wanted, effectively sandwiching her between its bumper and the side of a warehouse with a streetlight on one side that left her no room to manoeuvre.

Mai left her engine running and thumped the wheel, reaching again for her cell. Bad feelings weren't something she could call the police out over, but this was different.

The MG's driver door popped open and the guy with the beard stepped out. He moved with a strange, almost drunken gait, arms dangling and spine curved like he had scoliosis. It straightened when he pointed at her and Mai froze when she heard his voice.

"Sinner! How is it you're alive when my master is dead?"

In her mind Mai flipped back to a night that seemed eons ago now, when someone broke into Anzu's house and stole the God Cards. She remembered pounding down the street, sneaking past the sleeping security of a building site to stand on scaffolding with Yuugi and Ryou and witness for the first time how the Oricalchos could split open a person and tear out their soul like an organ.

"Perfect," she muttered, eyes scanning the foot-well. Where had that damn phone gone? The contents of her bag were everywhere – lipstick, nail file, hairbrush, purse, Duel Monsters Deck – but no phone. Knowing her luck it had probably slid into the backseat where she couldn't get at it without turning her back on this moron or getting out to lean in through the rear door. There was a wild, not entirely sane look in the bearded man's eyes that made Mai not want to look away from him. The last time she saw an expression like that was when she looked in the mirror the day after Battle City.

The last time she heard that voice it was wrapped up in a scream so violent and agonised it seemed to be tearing his throat apart.

"When I saw you going to your car I thought I was mistaken, but it _is_ you. I thought luck had abandoned me, but I was wrong. You're one of the Nameless Pharaoh's friends. You're one of those who destroyed Master Dartz!"

Mai locked her door as he pelted at the car and slammed his fists against the window. It made her lose track of where she'd already looked for her cell. She wasn't _scared_ – at least, not compared to what she was used to. Ineffectively smacking a car window and spraying it with spit wasn't exactly the behaviour of a true threat in her world – which was unsettling for a whole other reason. He wasn't even wearing a Duel Disk.

Come to think of it, his clothes looked threadbare. Just like his ragged beard, his hair hadn't been combed in a while. He had the unkempt look of a man who couldn't see the point in personal hygiene and spent more than one evening a week in a bar. Close up, Mai could see stains on his shirtfront, dirt encrusting his fingernails, and what looked like half a broken monocle dangled from his collar. The uneven edge glinted like a harpy's claws.

"You ruined everything!" he shrieked, trying to pull back the soft top of her car. Mai was glad she'd left it up even though it was a warm day. "Master Dartz was preparing the way for a new order – a civilisation without pain or suffering. _You_ fought to keep evil in the world! How could you do such a thing? How could you – ngh!" Finding no joy with window or roof, he bent to pry at one of her hubcaps.

"Hey! Leave that alone!"

It must've been loosened by her run-in with the kerb, because he detached it with his bare hands and cracked it against the window. Mai yelped and threw herself across both seats as he struck a second time, shattering the glass into thick shards that sprayed inwards. Mai felt them land on her jacket right before he reached in and grabbed her arm, apparently trying to pull her out of the vehicle _through_ the broken window.

"Get lost, creep!" She gripped his wrist the way all single women who'd been to self-defence classes were taught how to, twisting it to make him release her. His fingers turned nerveless and he withdrew his arm, but only so he could unlock the door and wrench it open, grabbing Mai once more to pull her from her seat. "Hey-"

"Sinner!" the man yelled again. "Murderer! You ruined everything M-Master Dartz was trying to ach-chieve. You and your friends doomed the world to a future filled with darkness and pain. Y-you have to pay – you have to p-pay for what you've done!" He was so angry he stuttered.

"Let go of me right now or I'll kick you in the nuts so hard you'll think you swallowed them," Mai threatened. "Dartz was a freak controlled by the Oricalchos. Everything he stood for was wrong and the world's better off without him."

He said a very bad word that made even Mai wince. "He was working to save humanity from itself-"

"By killing everyone? You're better off without him. He sacrificed your soul. Without him you're alive and have it back."

"I'm nothing without him! The _world_ is nothing without him. His plans were to make everything better; to cleanse the world of evil so innocent people could live in peace and harmony. But you idiots murdered him!"

Mai stopped trying to resist and instead launched her whole body from the car, cannoning into him. She held her keys bunched in her fist and drove them point-first at his midsection. He was so surprised he let go and she took the opportunity to make a run for it.

Her things were all still in the Corvette, but everything in her told her the best thing would be for her to find someplace more crowded where he couldn't assault her so easily. Not that she couldn't beat him if she wanted – she was a single woman carving a career in this new millennium, and for a long time taking care of herself in all ways was her top priority. Still, her lower arm burned where it had scraped the broken window and glass had pierced the fabric.

The man's shriek of rage followed Mai, and so did he. Heeled boots were great for making her feel good and did wonders for posture, but they robbed Mai of her head start. He tackled her from behind and they both crashed to the ground.

Mai kicked out, catching him in the stomach. He gave a satisfying moan but didn't let go, instead clawing at her arms and reaching for her throat. She tried to turn over but his heavier body pinned her down. He wrapped an arm under her chin, pulling her head back and restricting her windpipe. Mai thrust one elbow behind and upwards, trying for his ribs, but his strength was that of a man crazed by grief and anger. If she hit him he didn't feel it. He'd latched onto her and wasn't about to let go.

Spots swam in front of Mai's eyes. She started to panic, thrashing wildly, but the muscles in the arm against her throat only tightened. Her fingers caught in her own hair, tangling up it the thick blonde waves and ripping out tufts as she struggled to breathe.

_I can't die here_, she thought desperately. Unlike most people under thirty who, when they thought of death at all, considered it some nebulous thing that happened to others, Mai was acutely aware of her own mortality. Losing her parents and having her life threatened so often made her sharp to it and the word held no whimsy, only grim reality. _I can't die like this, not after everything I've been through. This is … this is too pathetic-_

And then, quite suddenly, the pressure was gone. Mai fell on her face, gasping and with blood pounding louder than an express train in her ears. The weight bearing down on her vanished and when she'd taken enough deep breaths to clear her vision she half-turned to see what was going on.

Having one bad arm didn't stop Valon hoisting the bearded guy up by his collar, nor did the guy's raspy struggles make him let go.

"Are you okay, Mai?" Valon asked.

_Stupid question_. Mai coughed and drew her knees under her. They felt white-hot where she'd fallen on them, her body still trying to register the pain that would become bruises. "I'm all right." She had to use the wall for support and could see the indecision in Valon's face about whether he should help her up or keep hold of her attacker – and, Mai remembered with a jolt, his former teammate in Doma. "What the hell are _you_ doing here?"

"I was leaving the mall when saw Gurimo on the sidewalk, staring at you driving away. He ran for his car and the connection was too obvious not to make. I figured that whatever he wanted to follow you for, it couldn't be good, so I followed the both of you."

"But your arm … your motorcycle …"

"I hailed a taxi. You pair led me a right old song and dance – my cab driver abandoned me a while back and I had to follow on foot for the last three alleys. What were you playing at, Mai, driving all around the world and then getting yourself cornered in a quiet street like this? I thought you were smarter than that."

Mai scowled. She was grateful for the rescue but resented his disbelieving tone, as though she'd let him down in some way by having the misfortune to be attacked. "Excuse me if I didn't expect to meet _another_ psychotic member of a world domination cult today."

"I'm not psychotic. I'm your guardian angel."

"You're getting in my way," hissed the bearded man, now identified as Gurimo.

Valon finally set him down, but only so he didn't choke him. He didn't actually release him. Instead, Valon twisted one of the older man's arms into a half-Nelson and leaned over his shoulder. He may only have possessed one good arm but it was a powerful arm and he was obviously well-versed in the ways of hurt and intimidation.

That thought sent a little shiver through Mai.

"I haven't seen you in a long time, Gurimo. Not since before Paradias went into liquidation. I would've thought you'd be grateful to one of the people who helped rescue your soul from the Oricalchos."

"She's a murderer – she and all her kind."

"Her kind?"

"The contaminated souls! The tainted ones! Those gladly infected with evil! You remember what Master Dartz used to call them."

Valon's jaw was grim. "I remember."

Gurimo's voice took on a woebegone tenor. "He was going to save the world and they condemned it instead. You should understand that more than anyone, Valon. You fought for Master Dartz. He helped you overcome your own pain and loss, and gave you a new purpose to live for. You believed in his teachings as much as me. Don't you want to get revenge on the ones who killed him – the ones who destroyed everything we worked so hard to achieve?"

Valon's gaze shifted away – only slightly, so that it rested on Gurimo's neck instead of looking sideways into his eyes. "Dartz was playing us all for fools, Gurimo. He wasn't trying to save the world; he was just another pawn for the Oricalchos. His soul was finally set free when he died, like it should've been ten thousand years ago."

"No!"

"It's true. Dartz wasn't any saviour; he was a manipulative man with enough power to make a lot of problems for a lot of people. I'd even go so far as to say he was pretty evil himself."

"Liar!"

"Dartz arranged all the bad things that happened to us so we'd join Doma and work for him. He needed strong duellists like us to harvest souls for the Oricalchos, and he wasn't above getting rid of our families and friends to give us the right motivation."

Gurimo's eyes widened at this and a horrible keening rose from his throat like water from a geyser. His pupils had shrunk to pinpricks, leaving Mai looking at whites threaded with burst blood vessels and surrounded by the puffiness of tears and sleepless nights. He looked awful and sounded worse. "That's not true – Master Dartz rescued us from our misery and gave us a higher purpose."

"He lied to us," Valon said tightly. "He _caused_ that misery specifically so he could recruit us. I'm sorry, Gurimo, but it's the truth. He had to be stopped before he could cause anyone else the kind of pain he caused us. His whole philosophy was wrong." His gaze shifted again, this time upwards so that it rested ever-so-briefly on Mai, before sliding to the floor in front of them. "Souls aren't all good or all evil – everybody has a little of both in them. If Dartz's plans had been allowed to succeed it would've meant the death of the entire human race. He _had_ to be stopped."

"You helped them!" Gurimo twisted his neck like a corkscrew to fix horrified eyes on Valon. "_You_ turned against Master Dartz! You've become a tainted soul! That's why he was defeated: not because he was wrong, but because you betrayed him. You … you _traitor_!"

Valon frowned and shook him a little. "No, Gurimo. I wasn't the traitor, Dartz was – he was a traitor to everything he made out he stood for. He _lied_ to us. Your daughter, your wife, they died because of him – because the Oricalchos pointed you out as an exceptional duellist and Dartz had to remove everything that tied you to the world so you'd willingly work with him to destroy it."

"Don't you dare bring them into this!" With a burst of strength and gymnastic ability Mai would not have thought possible had she not seen it, Gurimo bent at the waist and rotated on the ball of one foot, landing a backwards kick in Valon's crotch she would've been proud of had the situation not been what it was. Valon grunted and Gurimo twisted out of his grip. He landed a punch to the jaw that laid Valon flat on the ground, then snatched up the hubcap he'd used on her Corvette's window and raised it to smash Valon's skull.

Mai didn't remember making the decision to move. The first she knew she was already in motion, tackling Gurimo the same way he'd tackled her only minutes earlier. They shot sideways as one, rolling over and over with Mai clutching at his arms and him trying not to let her pin them to his sides. The parts of Mai that hit the ground hurt like hell, and the hubcap clattered to the floor but neither took any notice.

He pushed her off when they smacked into a trash can, trying to get back to Valon. Slightly winded and throbbing white-hot in a dozen new places, Mai still managed to wrap one hand around his ankle and hold on. He stumbled into an awkward kneeling position, his captured leg stretched out behind him.

"You bozo, can't you understand what he's telling you?" She only understood half of it, but enough made sense that she could shout with conviction. "The guy you think so highly of was just _using_ you. You're better off without him-"

Gurimo kicked at her but she hung on. "I needed Master Dartz! He gave my life meaning again. After I lost everything he picked me up and put me back together. Without him I'm just a shell – wandering around, living hand to mouth, nobody knowing or caring who I am or what I've suffered. People glance over me without seeing me. I can see the indifference in their eyes. It's that kind o findifference to the torment of fellow men and women that's destroying this world. That's what Master Dartz was trying to stop. He gave me the power of the Oricalchos; he took away my pain and let me make a difference to the world's suffering by removing pieces of evil from it. Now all my pain's come back and there's no chance I'll ever escape it again because he's _dead_. Without him my life has no significance. Without him I'm … I'm nothing. You tainted souls took that away from me. That _traitor_ took that away from me."

"That's garbage. Dartz didn't make you who you are. You can still be someone without him, just like Valon, or Raphael, or Amelda. They're doing okay now Dartz is gone."

"Don't compare me to that traitor! He's even worse than you – he understood what we were trying to do and he ruined it anyway."

"Dartz _wanted_ to be free at the end. Anzu told me so – he was glad to die and have his soul released from the Oricalchos so he could finally join his family."

A guttural scream ripped from Gurimo. He wrenched his foot free. "Lies! All lies! He wouldn't abandon the mission when it was so close to success! He wouldn't sacrifice everything like that – you destroyed him, all of you. You spoiled the only chance the world had of saving itself from self-destruction!"

"If anyone's self-destructing here it's you," Mai retorted, standing up.

Gurimo gave another guttural scream and came at her in a charge as savage as it was uncontrolled. Mai moved aside but so did he. He slammed his full body into her, lifting her entirely from the ground and carrying her with him as he kept moving. His arms, thinner than they had once been but still bigger than Mai's, wrapped around her narrow waist. On instinct she whapped both hands into his neck but apparently not hard enough, or else he was too crazed to be affected. Together they crashed into the wall. Mai cried out in pain and slid down it when he released her, all breath knocked from her lungs and her upper back on fire. She couldn't move – couldn't _breathe_. She could barely even _see_ through the haze of black and white dots.

"Mai!" she heard Valon call. "Bastard!"

Mai was aware of them coming to blows in front of her, and that even though Valon was younger and stronger than Gurimo he wasn't winning very easily. Gurimo went at it with the raw abandon of a man balancing on the edge. Plus, Valon's bad arm put him at a complete disadvantage and he was obviously still recovering from the two hits Gurimo already got in. He kept looking across at Mai and letting in easy hits she _knew _he could dodge. Half-blind with pain radiating up her spine, Mai realised she was worried about the stupid jerk.

"Valon," she wheezed.

"Don't worry, Mai, I can take him – oof!"

"Traitor! Why did you do it? For her? Did you betray Master Dartz for some pretty face?"

There was raw anguish in Gurimo's voice. He stirred pity in Mai. Gurimo had never seen or heard Dartz when he explained what the Oricalchos had planned for the world – he didn't know how Dartz had manipulated events behind the scenes, so that everything slotted into his plans and those around him acted as his puppets while thinking they still had free will. Gurimo had some sort of hero worship thing going on and that, combined with grief and frustration, had made him crazy. Mai's hatred of Malik and frustration at her own weakness had caused a similar reaction in her, once upon a time.

She still wanted Valon to win, though.

Valon flung Gurimo sideways, breathing hard. "Stop this, Gurimo. We can help you. Doma's gone but that doesn't mean your life doesn't have meaning anymore."

"Filthy traitor!"

"Gurimo, listen to me! Don't let Dartz influence you even when he's gone-"

"You're not fit to speak his name!" Gurimo stumbled, wiping sweat from his eyes, and came at Valon with a stupidly wild swing that would probably break his wrist at that angle. Valon prepared to grab his arm and twist it to do just that.

"Valon, don't hurt him!" Mai cried wildly.

"Don't hurt _him_?" Distracted by her shout, Valon hurtled backwards when Gurimo's haymaker struck his shoulder with a loud pop. He crashed hard into the Corvette's open door and yelped, reminding Mai of the broken glass lining the window. Valon's face twisted up in pain. His back arched, and he clutched bad arm at the shoulder, which seemed to be sticking out further than usual. Then he slumped like a sack of rice after sliding around in the back of a truck.

Gurimo loomed over him, panting. He had an extra large glass shard in his hand and paid no heed to how it cut into his palm and fingers. Dishevelled and irrational, he'd changed from an unassuming guy who drove an MG into something from a nightmare.

"Traitor," he spat, kicking Valon's shin and then planting a foot on his chest. Valon didn't retaliate, apparently too winded. "You used to be so powerful. You're nothing without Master Dartz either, and you brought it all on yourself. Well at least I can remove _one _piece of evil from the world the way Master Dartz wanted." He drew back the shard to stab Valon – and promptly crumpled into a heap as Mai brought the hubcap down on his head.

Valon squinted blearily up at her. "Thanks."

"Is he dead?"

A quick check revealed Gurimo wasn't.

Mai dragged a wrist across her forehead. "Should we tie him up or something?"

"With what?"

"Good point."

She went in through the passenger door of the Corvette while Valon watched Gurimo. Her cell phone finally appeared, having been wedged beneath the seat. She called the authorities, telling them she'd been attacked by a raving lunatic who'd smashed up her car and could they please get their fat asses down here to pick him up. She missed out the bit about fat asses, conscious they might not be too inclined to hurry if she did, but the words hovered on her lips.

"And send an ambulance, too. There was a fight. This," she glanced at Valon, "guy I know tried to rescue me when the crazy moron assaulted me and they're both pretty busted up." Wisely, she left out the part about them both being former members of a soul-stealing multinational corporation that doubled as an apocalypse-worshipping cult of bikers, sorcerers and ten-thousand-year-old kings. Not only was it a mouthful, it would probably have them bringing a straight-jacket for her.

She keyed in Anzu's number afterwards, but cursed up a storm when her phone fizzled and died. She hadn't noticed the low battery icon flashing and tossed the hunk of junk back into the car. Still aching, she sat sideways in the passenger seat facing away from Valon. Her spine zinged where she'd hit the wall and it sharpened her bad mood to an armour-piercing point.

"Is he still unconscious?"

"Yup. You hit him a real hum-dinger."

"I hope I don't get arrested for Grievous Bodily Harm."

"Nah, it was total self-defence. You'll need to get that cut on your arm looked at, by the way. It doesn't seem too bad, but you don't want risk infection."

"Stop doing that."

"Doing what?"

"Acting all concerned about me. I don't need it and I don't need you."

"Except when you do need me, like today."

"Excuse me? Who saved whom from being stabbed to death?"

"Okay, so we needed each other. The point is I was around when you needed me. When we were fighting Dartz I promised I'd always be there when you need me, right?"

Mai did remember. It had been just after he threw his ring into the sea, when he turned to her and thanked her for giving him the strength to do it. He'd tried to hold her hand but she pulled away, yet instead of being offended he just laughed wearily and promised to always be there when she needed him until the day she fell for him.

"Because you will," he'd said confidently. "Somehow I'm going to win you over, Mai, even if it kills me."

She'd wanted to slap his face, but they'd been interrupted and she had erased the memory until now.

"Don't think this means I like you," Mai snapped, a conflicting mix of emotions sliding around inside her like melting jello. "As far as I'm concerned, you're still a creep. The only reason I saved you was to return a favour, not because I actually care about you. Plus I was trying to save that Gurimo guy from himself. He's kind of pitiful, actually. I just felt sorry for him."

"And a smack to the head with a hubcap really demonstrates that kind of concern. Don't I at least get a thank you for rescuing you?"

"I'm not some pathetic damsel in distress. I could've handled the situation."

"Yeah, it looked that way when he was strangling you on the ground. Man, what does a guy have to do to win your approval? I fought my boss, turned against an evil empire, battled the Oricalchos and broke its hold over me – not an easy task, I might add – lost my soul, got myself back on my feet afterwards and into a stable, non-evil life, and rescued you from Gurimo. But still he, the guy who attacked you and called you names for _daring_ to save the world, still gets more kudos than I do."

"Yes, well, unlike you _he_ never stalked me or watched my house waiting for me to be vulnerable enough to recruit to that evil empire."

"You make it sound like I was there every night writing bad poetry and serenading you at your window."

"Weren't you?"

"For your information I was there twice – once to confirm where you lived and once when you arrived back with that Anzu chick and she spent the night taking care of you. I was going to present you with an offer of joining Doma that night, and I stayed in the pissing rain until morning. Except that by the morning, when your other three friends turned up, I'd pretty much guessed that whatever chance I might've had of reaching you was lost."

"Because members of Doma had to have no ties to the world so they'd, and I quote, 'willingly work with Dartz to destroy it'?"

For a moment Valon lapsed into silence. Mai flicked a glance over her shoulder, but he was still there. His back was still towards her, meaning he was still watching Gurimo and, presumably, the older man still hadn't awoken. She was just wondering whether she should start worrying she'd given him brain damage when Valon spoke again.

"I wasn't just saying that," he said in a strained voice. "No member of Doma joined if they still had connections to the outside world that might compromise their loyalty to the cause. It was practically in the job description – Rule One: from now until the end of days you live for Doma and only Doma, forsaking all other responsibilities and relationships. I was the exception to that, though I didn't start out that way. I guess Dartz never planned on me making new connections when I was already under the Oricalchos's influence; not after he got rid of…"

"What?"

"You know, now I come to think about it, I don't think you being in Doma would ever have worked out," Valon went on, ignoring her question. "I think I was just so attached to the idea of getting to know you better I stopped thinking about the practicalities. I couldn't leave Doma and you were in pain – the solution seemed simple for both of us. But it wouldn't have worked. You have to be lonely to be a Doma Rider, but it has to be the kind of loneliness you can't cure with other people's company – or don't want to. Amelda and Raphael fell into the second category, but Gurimo … ugh …"

"Valon?" Mai turned to see him half-slide off the seat and onto the asphalt. Sudden, inexplicable alarm gripped her. "Valon!" She dashed around the front of the car to him.

His face was the colour of old cardboard and his fingers gripped reflexively at his shoulder. It was very obviously dislocated and he was even more obviously in a lot of pain. He looked up at Mai through half-lidded eyes, sweat beading his brow. There was also a dark stain spreading down the side of his shirt.

"You're hurt!" Mai exclaimed.

"No kidding."

"Idiot, that's not what I meant. You got cut when you crashed into the window."

"It's just a scra -"

"Don't you dare try any of that macho crap on me. Here." She removed her jacket, wincing as the hairs stained with dried blood on her lower arm ripped out by their roots. He'd been right; her injury was superficial.

Valon's wasn't. He tried to push her hands away but his movements were sluggish.

"Mai, don't-"

"Shut up." Lifting his shirt she saw his cut wasn't as wide as she'd expected, but appearances could be deceiving. There was no telling how deep it went, and Mai half-remembered first aid classes at school where the teacher said the best thing for a deep wound was to leave the reason for it in place to plug the blood flow.

There was a lot of bloodstained glass underneath him but no glass in Valon's side. There were, however, many old scars crisscrossing his skin that made her recoil. Some were only thin white lines, the kind anyone might get from touching a hair-straightener or an iron before it'd cooled. A few were bigger, forming a network of old cuts. Yet there were a couple of vivid reddish purple slashes with knots in them where torn flesh had knitted back together crooked. These glared accusingly at Mai, a damning reminder of Valon's shady past. She pressed her jacket against the new wound, half to stem the blood and half to cover the scars, willing the ambulance to hurry so they wouldn't be alone anymore.

She stayed crouched beside him since he was in no fit state to hold the jacket in place for himself. "This is to stop you getting your blood on my upholstery."

"Mmm-hmm. Not at all to do with you wanted to get under my shirt." His voice was maybe a little _too _flippant and he wouldn't look at her.

"Don't flatter yourself," she shot back, as though she hadn't seen anything worth mentioning.

Valon smirked. When he was playing at being a hero his eyes were hard and assessing, his face lean and angular, and the small scar in his hairline implied he'd never lived a cautious life. Mai was used to seeing him like that, all insufferable smirk and casual bravery, as though the fate of the world was no more important than choosing what cereal to have for breakfast. It was this version of him that sprang to mind whenever she heard his name – Valon leaning his motorcycle into such a tight turn his boot scraped the floor; Valon in his armour on the duelling field; Valon grinning when he snatched the God Cards and zoomed away in a phalanx with Amelda and Raphael; Valon in the desert asking if she'd die for her friends.

Yet sometimes there were flashes of another side to his personality; brief impressions of a person beneath. When he was in pain, when he fought off the Oricalchos's control, when he wasn't concentrating on being the version of himself he thought the world deserved – unguarded moments that made Mai grit her teeth in irritation that he wasn't so straightforward after all. On the surface Valon was clear-cut: asshole with a noble streak. Scrape away the cliché and bits of a real person oozed out like pus from a septic wound. At times like that his face seemed softer, his blue eyes sympathetic, and the scar in his hairline gave the (mistaken?) impression he might need a bit of mothering.

His eyelids fluttered. Mai gave him a gentle slap.

"What the heck was that for?" he demanded.

"Stay awake. You might have a concussion." She glanced at Gurimo, ignoring her own throbbing headache and the dent it felt like the wall had made in her skull. "So might he. Is it normal to stay unconscious this long?"

"How should I know?"

"Haven't you been in lots of fights before?"

Valon let out a harsh snigger. "You could say that. Sometimes I think my whole life has been one big fight scene, and I'm still not sure if I'm the main character or the extra that gets killed to show how serious the situation is." He winced and shifted, trying to pull away from her jacket. He was blinking a lot, and maybe it was her imagination but each blink seemed a little longer than the last. His breathing also seemed shorter.

_Keep him conscious_, said a voice in her head. Mai grubbed about for something to talk about and snatched at the first thought that wandered past. "What happened to Gurimo's wife and daughter?"

"Hmm?"

"You mentioned them before. He got pretty upset."

Valon nodded. "They were in the Subway Sarin Incident. You remember that?"

Mai did. "That was the subway train that got hit by a terrorist attack, wasn't it?"

"Yeah. Most serious attack on any Japanese city since World War Two and it was carried out by Japanese people – ironic, huh? Terrorists released a nerves gas called sarin on several lines of the Tokyo Metro. Production and stockpiling of sarin were outlawed n 1993, but people being what they are, the terrorists who hit the Metro system had a stash of fresh stuff in 1995. Fifty people were badly injured. Nearly a thousand others got serious vision problems. They were the lucky ones. Twelve people died, Gurimo's wife and daughter among them."

Mai couldn't help herself. "The poor guy."

"The attack was carried out by a group called Aum Shinrikyo. You know why they did it?"

She shook her head. She had a vague idea, but it seemed more important to keep Valon talking.

Valon didn't speak with any great passion, but he spoke at length. It seemed this was something he'd thought about a lot, to be so verbose. "Aum was and is a cult. The police dismissed the idea at the time, and it was eventually discredited by politicians and the media, but an initial explanation for such a random attack was that it was the cult's way of helping to bring about the apocalypse. I ask you, how is one attack on a piddly little civilian subway supposed to cause the apocalypse? It was a ridiculous idea, so everyone forgot about it."

"You mean Doma did it?" Mai breathed, slotting pieces together in her mind to form a gruesome picture. Dartz's apocalypse hinged on having soldiers to gather enough souls to reawaken the Oricalchos God. If Gurimo, one of those soldiers, had lost his wife and child in the subway attack then there was a clear connection between the two.

Pegasus's hologram had explained his hypothesis of Paradias and how it had been a shadowy organisation manipulating key historical events from times long before written records began. Thinking of that, it wasn't beyond the realms of possibility that Aum could find its roots in Dartz's cruel brain. What else had Aum done simply so Dartz could have some foot-soldiers? To create an entire cult to orchestrate the recruitment of Doma Riders sounded like the conspiracy theory of a madman, but ten thousand years was a long time to find pies. Maybe Dartz had fingers in more of them than anybody realised.

"It was the first part of Dartz's plan to send Gurimo so low he felt he had no other choice but to join Doma," Valon went on. "It wasn't a single blow that got him where Dartz wanted him. No, the bastard had to chip away at each potential Rider to make them the right shape first. There were other parts to the groundwork – the takeover of the company Gurimo worked for by a subsidiary corporation to Paradias, which stripped all the assets and left its workers with barely the clothes they stood up in. I should point out that Gurimo had thrown himself into his work after his family were killed. He lost his house and moved in with his mother, who happened to be his only surviving relative. Then his mother was called into hospital for a routine operation, which went mysteriously wrong, causing her death. He got the bill for it a week later, on the same day her house mysteriously burned down, taking everything inside with it. All memories of his family went up in smoke and what didn't was repossessed. There was some other stuff that happened, but you know the end of it. Dartz had thousands of years to work on his technique for filing down a person's self-esteem so they believed him when he told them up was down and the Oricalchos was the world's only hope against the kinds of cruelties they'd suffered."

"That's so … elaborate and twisted."

"You saw for yourself what a twisted guy he was. And you said Raphael and Amelda told you their stories." Valon shrugged, but immediately grimaced. "Augh. That's starting to – ngh – to really sting now."

Mai pressed her jacket tighter against his side. It was beginning to feel awfully damp. Seeds of worry put down roots in the back of her mind and started to sprout. She clamped both hands harder on the wound, remembering how her first aid teacher showed the class what to do when dealing with puncture wounds. She wished she'd paid more attention instead of staring out the window dreaming about driving away from home and never looking back.

"Nurse Kujaku," said Valon. "It has a nice ring to it. You ever think about being a nurse instead of a professional duellist?"

"Valon," she said softly, not looking him in the eye, "what did Dartz do to you to make you join Doma?"

* * *

_To Be Continued…_

* * *

**Side-flings, Homages and Downright Rip-offs**

_**She was sailing down Checker Street when she noticed a battered MG Metro getting too close to her rear bumper.**_

-- There's that gaming reference again. Also, my family has a history of driving Metros, so this is a vague homage to the plucky little cars who refuse to say die (until someone backs into them and turns them into a metal pretzel).

_**He sort of resembled her Uncle Sakumo, who got drunk at the wake for her parents' funeral, complained about having to pay condolence money for a cousin he hadn't seen since she married, and then told Mai she had nice 'baby tits' right before she spent the night keeping traditional vigil over mother and father's bodies.**_

-- In Japan the wake traditionally happens the day _before_ the funeral, unlike in the West where it usually happens on the same day and right after the ceremony. I'm going by Wikipedia on this one, so I'll include the information I used while writing: 'A guest will bring condolence money in a special black and silver decorated envelope. Depending on the relation to the deceased and the wealth of the guest, this may be of a value equivalent to between 5,000 and 30,000 yen. The guests are seated, with the next of kin closest to the front. The Buddhist priest will read a sutra (the term refers mostly to scriptures that are regarded as records of the oral teachings of Gautama Buddha). The family members will each in turn offer incense three times to the incense urn in front of the deceased. The wake ends once the priest has completed the sutra. Each departing guest is given a gift, which has a value of about half or one quarter of the condolence money received from this guest. The closest relatives may stay and keep vigil with the deceased overnight in the same room.'

"_**Sometimes I think my whole life has been one big fight scene and I'm still not sure if I'm the main character or the extra that gets killed to show how serious the situation is."**_

-- Partially inspired by a similar line in _Galaxy Quest_.

_**Valon nodded. "They were in the Subway Sarin Incident … how is one attack on a piddly little civilian subway supposed to cause the apocalypse? It was a ridiculous idea, so everyone forgot about it."**_

-- The Subway Sarin Incident was a real event and the idea that it was trying to bring about the apocalypse really was kicked about for a while before being discarded. Life really does read like fiction sometimes.

* * *


	3. Breathe Out

_My window through which nothing hides_

_And everything sees_

_I'm counting the signs and cursing the miles in between – home!_

-- From _Breathe_ by Melissa Etheridge.

* * *

**3. Breathe Out**

* * *

Valon stiffened. Mai actually _felt_ his breathing accelerate, following the movement of his chest with her hands.

"You don't give up, do you?" His smirk reappeared. "Actually, that's one of the things I find most attractive about you. You never give up, even when the chips are down. You always find a way to pull yourself back from the edge and come out fighting. We're similar in that respect – except that you had friends to pull you back and I had Dartz." He sighed, chin dropping onto his chest. "I think you got the better deal."

Perspiration dripped off his nose and Mai wanted to tell him not to wipe it away because him moving made staunching his cut harder, but she couldn't bring herself to say anything. Suddenly Valon looked so _tired_; a spirit-crushing weariness that made even his gravity-defying hair droop.

"I've always come out fighting," he said. "I didn't always mean to, it just kind of happened that way. I'm not like Amelda, or Raphael, or even Gurimo. For me it was never about getting revenge on one person or putting the world to rights – it was my own selfish need not to be alone and to punish _anyone_ who crossed my path. You ever punched someone just because you can, Mai?" Valon shook his head almost immediately. "No, I guess not. You're too classy to use fists, right?"

Mai actually snorted at that. Classy? Maybe once upon a time. As far as Mai knew, classy was an outdated idea used to cover up the bad behaviour of rich people by renaming it as socially acceptable. Classy was for women who didn't know the thrill of wearing a short skirt and knowing you were wearing it for you, not for the people watching you. Classy was for women who'd never trash-talked across a duelling field, or worked on a ship's casino where blackmail opportunities were rife and not been tempted any of them. Mai remembered the glittery world in which she spent her childhood. The backstabbing and money-grubbing and loneliness in crowds of people had left a nasty taste in her mouth.

"I just had a knock-down drag-out fight and brained a guy with a hubcap," she reminded Valon.

"Always come out … fighting … We're survivors …" Valon looked at her with something too long to be a blink.

"Valon?"

"Huh?" Several shorter blinks followed, in which Valon seemed to remember where he was. He looked at a point just over Mai's shoulder, narrowing his eyes in thought. "You just want me to keep talking so I don't pass out."

"Partly."

"So let's talk about the weather."

"Was it really that bad, what happened?" Mai tried to catch his eye and failed. Something inside her … didn't snap so much as withdraw at that moment. "You say you first saw me back in Battle City. You don't know the whole story. You say you understand what it's like to feel lonely and misunderstood, but you don't know what I went through there to make me that way." She took a deep breath. "I lost a duel against a guy called Malik."

What was she doing? What was she _doing_? This wasn't how it was supposed to go. This wasn't what she'd planned to say. The worlds burbled up from somewhere deep inside Mai where she'd thought she locked them away. She didn't need to say this with Anzu or the others – she didn't need to go into detail because they already _knew_. They knew and they didn't judge her, and that shored up Mai's self-confidence to where it used to be. So why was she bringing it all up now, to _Valon_ of all people? You couldn't get more inappropriate than that. Nobody beyond those who were present at Battle City knew more than she'd allowed them to, which wasn't much, but the words just kept coming.

"He was just a kid – a no-name scrap from some backwater place in Egypt. I was taller than him, older than him, I had more Duel Monsters wins under my belt: realistically I was better than him in every way and I should've been able to beat him. I didn't. After I lost to him he used a Millennium Item to split open my psyche and dump a load of poison right into me. Sometimes … sometimes I still feel it crawling around inside, like I swallowed a cockroach or something. He made me believe everyone I'd ever cared for had abandoned me to die. My own mind was eating itself alive for nearly a day. I was so convinced I was imprisoned in a glass box filling with sand I'm told I actually started to choke to death. They had to clear my airways and pump oxygen into me through a machine because my body was giving up. Some sicko teenager literally reached _into_ my _head_ and _tortured_ me just because he got off on the power trip and I was in his way.

"After it was over – when someone else saved me – I felt so … so dirty, like I should've been able to look after myself better than that. I always prided myself on being stronger than everyone expected. I … my family wasn't exactly close and they didn't believe I could make it on my own. Every time I overcame another difficulty it was like I was proving them wrong. Yet that _kid_ was able to reduce me to this quivering wreck who couldn't get to sleep at night without a light on. I was a mess. Nobody took me seriously anymore. It felt like that one loss had taken away everything I ever worked for – everything I ever wanted to be. That's why I was depressed after Battle City, Valon. That's what was going on in my head when you were considering asking me to join Doma."

He kept his gaze resolutely away from her. "Is this 'I showed you mine so you show me yours'? 'My angst can beat your angst'?"

"No, I just …" Mai paused. Even she wasn't sure why she'd revealed all that to him. It had just seemed appropriate at the time. Ever weirder, she didn't regret it. Her throat was tight and her eyes felt like half-sucked boiled sweets, but she didn't regret a word. Not a syllable. "I guess I just wanted you to understand."

Valon grunted. "I grew up in Edogawa," he said bluntly.

"What?"

"Edogawa. Big place. Lots of people. Lots of buildings. Lots of everything that makes a city plus a big dose of callousness if you grew up on the wrong side. You learned the rules pretty fast there – the guy with the best right hook reigned supreme and all the other dumb schmucks got out of his way. Hitting things is practically my first memory, or if it isn't, it should be. Lil' Valon, standing up in his crib, punching the daylights out of his stuffed rabbit. As long as all my punches were connecting I was okay, and that worked for me. That is, until I met Sister Mary Catherine." He blinked, and then blinked again before going on. "She hated fighting, and she hated _me_ fighting even more. But what did I care? It'd worked for me for too long. Even getting arrested a couple of times didn't stop me. I was due in juvie if I got caught again, but I wasn't going to give up my edge just because some woman in a smock frowned at me.

"When I was fifteen I was sent to the orphanage run by her church. She made me promise I wouldn't do it anymore while living under her roof. I broke the promise, of course. I never intended to keep it; I just said what she wanted to hear to shut her up, then climbed out my bedroom window and shimmied down the drainpipe to go beat on whoever had ticked me off that day. But she just kept on forgiving me and looking at me with these big sad eyes, cleaning me up afterwards and serving me dinner like everyone else. At first I thought she was a moron, covering for me and acting like I wasn't doing wrong. _I _knew I was doing wrong, I just didn't care. If she was going to be a moron, I thought, then let her get on with it. All the better for me.

"She never skimped me or punished me or anything like that. It was weird. I was used to getting a good smack if I did wrong, but she never raised a hand to anyone. She gave me school books, told me I could make something of myself if I tried. I burned the stupid things and she bought more out of the funds. When I caught measles she stayed by my bedside like some character in a storybook – like I actually _mattered_. It sounds like I'm making this up, but she was real. Man, was she real. She had this … this way of getting under your skin – making you feel like you weren't destined for prison or a plot in come cheapo graveyard. I can't really describe it."

Mai could. She knew that feeling all too well. Flashes of faces swept through her like she was standing at a crossroads when a train went past: Anzu, Yuugi, Ryou, Otogi, Seto Kaiba, Mokuba …

Valon went on haltingly, but his words were picking up speed, "Eventually I felt so bad that I did stop fighting. Well, as much as I could. Mostly I changed what I was fighting for and cut back on the needless beatings. I set myself up as some kid defender of her and the church, so whenever anyone from the neighbourhood dissed it I was right there in their faces rearranging them. Sometimes she caught me. I learned to hate that sad-eyed look. It was crazy – me, the kid who'd mashed more rivals than a monster truck, and I was worried about disappointing some _nun_. But I … I'd started to care about her. She was the first person to show me kindness without wanting something in return."

Mai knew this story couldn't have a happy ending, but she still felt her stomach clench as he continued.

"I never figured out what made the Oricalchos pick people as Doma Riders. I don't understand what made some better candidates than others. Billions of people in the world and only a handful of each generation were ever worthy? Maybe if I'd stayed some street punk who didn't care about anyone it would've picked someone else. Maybe if I'd never learned to care about anyone but myself I couldn't have been chiselled into the right shape. Maybe." Even Valon didn't look convinced. "One night a protection racket burned down the church. I was out knocking heads together and when I came back the whole place was in flames. The orphanage was attached to the church building itself, so whoever targeted it had to know what would happen. The flames spread so fast the petrol bombs they threw might as well have landed in the nursery with the eight babies who burned to death in their cribs. Someone had put padlocks on all the doors – on the _outside –_ so nobody could get out. I could hear the littlest kids screaming from three streets away."

Mai stifled her horror.

"I knew who did it, and I'll admit I went a bit crazy. A lot crazy," he amended, still not looking at her. His words tumbled like water over rocks, as though keeping them locked up for so long meant that now he's started, he literally couldn't stop. For the moment nothing existed in the world but him and his own voice. "There were five punks from the protection racket and one of me, but I still put them all in hospital with critical injuries. Nobody died, which I'm grateful for, but if the police hadn't found me I can't guarantee ... I was so angry I couldn't even see straight. Have you ever been that angry? So angry you feel like you're watching yourself from far away as you macramé some guy's face while he's begging you to stop? You can see yourself busting his kneecap and hear him pleading but you can't do anything to stop yourself. The kids I lived with begged, but nobody let them out. Nobody listened when Sister Mary prayed for a miracle. There was just me and my fists and then -"

A car door opened and an engine retched and turned over. Mai snapped around to see Gurimo behind the wheel, holding his head with one hand. She'd been so absorbed in Valon's story, and he was so distracted with telling it, that they hadn't even realised he was getting up behind them. There were bloodstains on the MG's door handle. Gurimo looked at her once, eyes blazing, and for a moment she thought he might drive straight at them to finish them off. They were an easy target and his face bespoke nothing but hostility and the settling of scores. He'd already proven he wasn't above killing in the name of his fallen master.

However, Gurimo didn't, instead pulling away and turning a corner out of sight. The fact that he didn't deem them worth bothering with made Mai more uneasy than if he'd turned his headlights their way and stamped on the accelerator. Maybe he thought there was no point. Maybe he thought he'd already done enough to settle his score.

She was suddenly very aware of Valon's laboured breathing and her own pulse loud in her ears.

Somewhere in the distance she could hear sirens. "The ambulance is on its way." Her hand felt funny. When she looked down she saw that the bit of her jacket pressed against his side was soaked with blood. "Shit."

"Not too classy to cuss." Valon's voice sounded weird; sort of slurred.

Mai immediately checked to make sure there was no blood in his mouth. She'd seen enough movies to know that a wound to the body that made blood come up the throat was pretty damn serious. Luckily, there was none there.

"You stay awake," she ordered. Blood wasn't _gushing_ from the wound, but his face was wan and his gaze getting more unfocussed by the second.

How had this happened? An hour ago she was waiting to have coffee with him, tapping her foot in irritation and resolved to hate his guts from start to finish. She resented Valon. She was still bitter about the stalker issue, and the things he'd done for Dartz, and all he and Doma had put them through. She hated his presumption in thinking she might still be attracted to him in the face of all that. She hated him being attracted to her, full stop.

It had taken most of Mai's life for her to open up enough to make friends, much less have a relationship. Prolonged loneliness blunted trust and sharpened suspicion. Guys only lusted after her, and she'd had plenty of offers before but always turned them down. Valon was no different. He was an asshole with the charisma of a second-hand car salesman and the magnetism of a lion picking its teeth.

So why were her palms sweating and her throat closing up as she shook him now? "Valon? Hey, stay with me."

"N-never thought I'd hear you say th-that."

"Don't get used to it. I still can't stand you, but I don't want anything like this on my conscience. You came to my rescue so, for the time being, that makes me responsible for your miserable life. I'm repaying you by keeping you awake until the paramedics arrive."

"At last you acknowledge I c-came to your rescue."

"Creep."

"Mmf…"

"It'll be faster for them to treat you than for me to try getting you to the hospital in my car -"

His eyes slid shut and his head dropped forward.

"Valon! Damn it, didn't you learn first aid in Doma? All those missions, all that time in the field, surely you learned something useful apart from how to goad people into high-stakes duels. Didn't you ever fall off your bike or meet guys with worse attitudes than you? Stay _awake_."

"Mmf… duelling's not the same as hitting stuff. Didn't g-get hurt like this in Doma. Well, not much." He lifted his head, obviously making a real effort to keep his voice precise. "Don't take the pressure off the wound. Fold the other half of your jacket on top of it if you have to, add more layers, but don't move the bit of it that's already attached. Gotta – ngh – plug the hole. Blood needs to clot to stop the bleeding. Just like ice won't form on the rapids of a river, blood won't clot when it's flowing. You move that plug and it'll just reopen."

Mai hastily did as she was told, folding in the arms of her jacket and holding them tightly in place. It was a new jacket from Long Tall Sally, which she'd had to special order over the Internet and greeted with delight when it arrived in the mail. She wore it today to give her confidence a boost and remind herself she didn't answer to _anyone_, least of all arrogant assholes like Valon, but right now it might as well have been a dishrag as she used the carefully cut fabric to blot up his blood.

She was a little dismayed that she knew exactly how to get blood out of fabric and when it was time to throw something bloodstained out and buy a new one.

"I know why you don't like me, Mai."

She faltered, thrown by the unexpected statement. "Excuse me?"

Valon took a deep breath. "It's because you're scared that I'm what you could've been if you'd been given the same choices I was. If Dartz had come to you and offered you power and a chance to wipe out all your pain, to prove yourself to the world through Duel Monsters and show you were still in control of your own destiny when everything around you had turned to shit – you can't say you wouldn't have said yes, and that scares you. But I did say yes, so it's easier to just hate me for giving into the temptation instead of you, right? Easier t-to hate my weaknesses than admit your own. But I'm not a bad guy, Mai. I'm … house trained an' … everythin' …" Valon's eyes, which had been flickering, suddenly widened. He lurched away from her and noisily threw up. "Urgh … guh … aw, man. What an impression to make on a first date."

Mai wasn't listening. She was looking at the shard of glass sticking out the back of his thigh, which had been revealed when he shifted position.

There was much, much more blood than she'd realised. She looked at him, panic stirring inside her like a speeded-up icicle arching down from the top of her ribcage into her heart and lungs. Wasn't there some important vein or artery in the thigh that killed you in a few minutes if you punctured it? How long had they been sitting like this? More than a few minutes, but maybe she was remembering it wrong. How much blood could a body lose before it gave up and died?

Even the word sounded strange in this context. She could think about her own death easily, but this context made its meaning glimmer and throw off new connotations like light shining through a prism. She hated Valon. She _did_. yet did she hate him enough to want him dead? Especially after he'd just saved her life – again – and especially after what she'd just heard.

"Sorry," Valon said, wiping his mouth on his sleeve.

"What the hell are you apologising for?" Should she get him into the car and try for the hospital, or should she continue to wait for the paramedics?

"I got blood on your upholstery." He was back to not meeting her eyes.

"Don't be an idio-"

"I did this right before I followed those protection racket guys into the alley behind the shopping mart. Threw up, I mean. I couldn't … couldn't deal … so I just … didn't. Just shut down – let my fists do the talking. Wasn't thinking. Always worked before … worked when they sent me to juvie, too. Lotta bad stuff happens in juvie … stuff a lady like you shouldn't hear about … I'm not a bad guy, Mai. I'm a thug, and a screw-up, but I'm not a bad guy. Lotta bad stuff … juvie … sickos in places like that …"

Mai didn't know what to say. What _could_ you say when someone sliced open their heart and gave you a guided tour of their secret pain?

Valon retched. It seemed to bring him back to himself. "Man, this hurts. Why do I always end up either debating the future of the world with you, or getting the crap kicked out of me and then getting yelled at for it?"

Mai willed the ambulance to hurry. They'd have equipment they could use on the spot, whereas she just had murky recollections of first aid and a guilty conscience. Gurimo was already long gone, but he wasn't her first priority anymore. "You're just lucky, I guess."

Valon was going into shock. All the signs pointed to it – the shallow breathing, paleness and nausea, plus he was beginning to get disorientated, mumbling and verbally wandering in circles. Shock was bad. Not as bad as bleeding to death, but still very bad.

This was _not_ how Mai pictured her day when she left the house with a promise to call the guys if anything bad happened.

"You need to stay warm. I have a blanket in the trunk for if I ever broke down while it was snowing-"

"You'd think I'd be bitter against Dartz, wouldn't you?" Valon cut in as if she hadn't spoken. "I know the protection racket in Edogawa belonged to Paradias. I know he got the warden at my juvenile detention centre to give me a Duel Monsters deck and set me loose on the other kids with an Oricalchos card. Can't be bothered, though. Dartz is dead and I'm not. Bully for me. Augh … ngh …"

"Valon -"

"I swore I'd never let myself be as weak as I was that night. I swore I'd always be strong, never be the little guy who couldn't … do anythin' … that I'd always … I was prepared to lose everything if it would make me forget that I'd cared … even about one person. Caring made you … made you weak. It made you have nighmares because caring means hurting when you're not enough to … I'd hitched my star to Doma and I would go wherever it took me. Except you don't forget. You just … stop feeling it so much. You're given a mission, something else to concentrate on, but yu don't forget." He gripped Mai's wrist in one clammy hand. There was a manic, unfettered look in his eyes that hadn't been there before, and even though it wasn't focussed on her, Mai felt intimidated by it. This was one of Valon's unguarded moments, but it was bigger than the others she'd seen. Shock and blood loss were making him fuggy and edging him towards something like hysteria. "I still saw her face. I still heard her screaming out to God to help her and I still … I still remembered how I couldn't do anything to help her except act like the same old thug I always was … lettin' her down again …"

Mai didn't know what to do. She felt herself falling towards a familiar pattern of helplessness. She really, really wished she hadn't pushed so hard for him to tell her his story. It had been a way to get under his skin, to exert power over him and to give her an excuse to walk away when she didn't even want to be there in the first place. She never imagined anything like this.

_Was this what it was like for Anzu and the others when they stayed with me? _

Valon babbled, "My life was like this … this piece of paper with the word 'Doma' on it, folding in on itself again, and again … and ag-gain … so there was … there was almost nothin' left the longer I went on. Just me, and Doma, and my fists hanging onto these pieces of cardboard that sucked out people's souls. Was even worse than punchin' people with 'em … I guess …" He laughed; a humourless chuckle like water gurgling down a drain. "The timing made sense. You made me question everything, Mai. Nuthin' like Sister Mary, but something about you reminded me … I think … you're a strong woman like her. Thinking about you in … in Doma with me. When I found you … it was like … like something inside me cracked open and all these … questions I'd been sitting on just … came out … I am talking such crap."

"Just keep talking."

"No, really, I'm talking crap. Forget everything I just said. Just … total … crap …" His eyes closed and his grip on her wrist relaxed. A long breath seeped from his mouth like the last bit of air from a punctured tyre.

"Valon?" Alarm laced Mai's voice. "Valon!"

He toppled towards her. She caught him awkwardly, eyes wide with alarm. Panic rose inside her like a column of badly stacked bricks. She could feel herself slipping, getting overwhelmed by the situation like she had that day beside the dumpster. She'd come a long way since then, but the after-effects of Malik's torture went deep. She could cope when she had people around her. She could fight for the future of the whole freaking human race if she had her friends nearby, but not alone like this. Alone, her nerve wavered like a candle flame next to an open window.

"Valon, please…" She hated the pathetic way she sounded and a tiny, selfish voice inside was glad he was unconscious so he couldn't hear the crack –

An ambulance screamed around the corner and skidded to a halt. One man and one woman in uniforms hopped out and the whole situation devolved into a mass of questions, soft touches and technical terms Mai didn't understand.

"Are you the one who made the call?"

"Uh? Uh, yes," she said, staring at the woman. "Yeah, that was me. The other guy took off, the one who attacked us."

"You know this guy?" asked the man, pointing at Valon. "Is he with you?"

"I-I think he's in shock-" Mai realised she was trembling as the woman gently peeled her hands away from Valon's side. _Trembling_ – how pathetic!

"Looks like you are too, honey. You gotta let go now. That it, that's the way, just let him go. C'mon, we'll get you warm and see to your friend."

"He's not my friend," Mai automatically snapped, and then stopped herself. Part of her was thinking 'I'm not the one in shock here' but another part was saying 'so if you're not his friend then what are you?'

"We're gonna need a tourniquet on that leg," said the male paramedic. His expression looked grim. "Plus some rocket fuel to get him back to Domino General," he muttered, obviously not intending Mai to hear.

"There's glass in his leg and some got in his side, but that bit must've fallen out or something," Mai tried to tell them, but she was steered away with quick, purposeful movements. "I'm pretty sure his shoulder was dislocated too, but his elbow's an old injury – hey! Wait!"

Another siren blared and a police car pulled up next to the ambulance, disgorging a pair of police officers. Mai was wrapped up, her pupils were checked and a blanket found its way around her shoulders. He caught a glimpse of her Long Tall Sally jacket on the flooor, crimson and dripping, and then she was left with these two while the paramedics worked on Valon. Though she strained her neck she couldn't see what was happening to him.

"Are you his partner?" asked one policeman, ducking into her line of sight. He'd apparently been speaking for several seconds and she hadn't noticed. "Or are you relative of some kind?"

A relative? With their disparate looks?

"No, I'm his … friend." Mai swallowed. "We went out for coffee. He kept calling it a date and I kept correcting him. I only went out with him because we made a deal – he did me a favour and payment was sharing one cup of coffee. I never expected … he rescued me from that other guy even though I told him I never wanted to see him again."

The officers exchanged glances. Mai realised at once how much she sounded like one of those feeble movie-of-the-week actress and set her jaw against their sympathetic looks.

"So how would you characterise your relationship with the other man, the one who attacked you?"

Mai bit the inside of her cheek. "He used to know my … that guy I was with. My … friend." The title still tasted weird, like mixing cotton candy with coal dust. "They weren't all that close. I only met him once before and never spoke to him in my life. I don't know what provoked him to attack me; he was babbling nonsense and smelled really bad, like he hasn't been taking care of himself. Listen, I get that you have to do the whole questioning thing, but what are they doing to Valon?" She indicated to the ambulance, which obscured her view of her own car.

"Don't worry, honey," said the female officer in an entirely too familiar way, resting one hand on Mai's shoulder and slipping her a comforting smile. It made Mai angry. "They'll take good care of him."

Mai shrugged off the hand. "They're taking him away. Can't I go with him?"

"We'll take you to Domino General to get you checked out, but it's probably best you leave the paramedics to do their job in peace."

"But-"

"Is there anyone we can call for you? Someone we could let know what's happ – 'scuse me?" The officer unclipped a radio from her belt and moved away to answer its crackle.

Mai heard the words 'crime scene', 'mugging' and 'young couple' along with number-coded instructions that made her feel like an extra on a cop drama. All the while she was conscious of the clank and squeak of a stretcher being loaded into the back of the ambulance. She wanted to look, but when she did she caught only a glimpse of uniformed backside retreating into the driver's seat.

"They'll take care of him," the other policeman said reassuringly, parroting his partner and doing nothing whatsoever to alleviate the heavy feeling in Mai's stomach. He was a soft, fatherly type, low-jowled and hood-eyed. Mai stared blankly at him. She realised it was dread in her stomach when the ambulance lurched away, snapping her attention to it, and she found herself hoping Valon would be all right so fervently that she clean forgot she didn't like him.

_This is ridiculous. He's a stalker. He's __**my**__ stalker. Plus he's a borderline psychopath. Remember the soul stealing. Remember what he said about always being a thug who likes to beat people up._

The remonstrations didn't ring as true as they had. Some part of Mai's brain kept going back to Valon's sweaty palm wrapped around her wrist, his shallow breathing and the garbled, earnest admissions about his past. She also remembered the incredibly liberating feeling that'd suffused her when she let her own secrets up for air.

_You can't change your entire opinion of a person based on one confused conversation_.

He had protected her, though. More than once. He'd been hurt on her behalf, and while she could write off fighting Doma as him pursuing his own selfish goals, today he got seriously hurt just keeping her safe from Gurimo. She'd made it perfectly plain there was nothing in it for him, yet he'd stuck his neck out for her anyway. There was a lesson in there somewhere. Anzu would be able to pick up on it easily, Yuugi and Ryou too. Even Otogi would probably have had the light-bulb appear above his head ages ago, but Mai was slower on the uptake. She was too wedded to her determination to find Valon objectionable to do more than glance sideways at any other emotions.

_I called him my friend_. _What does that mean?_

"Miss?" The policeman was talking again.

"Huh?" Mai blinked up at him. "Whu?"

"Is there anyone we could call to meet you at the hospital? Any family members you'd like to be with you right now? We're arranging to have your car taken care of, so we'll give you a ride now, but after some questions and a check-up you'll need transport home."

"No. No family. Uh, but," the words came so easily, "there _is_ someone you can call for me. The name's Mazaki, you can reach her at-" she reeled off a number she hadn't, until that moment, realised she knew by heart. Then she corrected herself, remembering everyone was at the Game Shop, and realised in a second instant she knew _that_ number too.

When did all these people become so important to her that she memorised their phone numbers? They were just kids, the kind she used to pass in the street without a second thought and which she hadn't even _been _for some time. It was ludicrous on some level that a grown woman like her should voluntarily hang out with teenagers; yet they had become her support network. She knew she could rely on them and would sacrifice her own soul to keep them safe. What had been the turning point to change them from acquaintances and allies into proper, go-to-the-mat, turn-to-you-first-in-a-crisis friends?

Valon never had anyone like that. You didn't get close in Doma, he'd said. Mai wondered what that must've been like – how she would've coped being cut off from a support network and having it replaced by dreams of power and a (flawed) higher purpose. Dartz made you dependant on him and called it support, but she remembered how he callously dismissed all those lost in his war; all those who'd seen him as their saviour, like they'd brought it on themselves and deserved nothing more than oblivion.

"… _**If Dartz had come to you and offered you power and a chance to wipe out all your pain, to prove yourself to the world through Duel Monsters and show you were still in control of your own destiny when everything around you had turned to shit – you can't say you wouldn't have said yes…"**_

Mai was guided into the back of a car. She heard the plastic snap of do-not-cross tape and the dull thrum of an engine turning over. Shouldn't she have spoken to someone on the phone? Or collected her things from her car? There were things she should be doing, the mundane things nobody ever thought about in a crisis, but she had to think about them. Her insurance company needed to be called about the damage to her Corvette, plus she'd lost her keys somewhere in the scuffle, and this outfit was ruined because of whatever slime had been on the ground in that alley. She had to be practical. That was what you were supposed to do in an emergency, right?

The world seemed kind of distant and haphazard, because no sooner had she thought this then they were pulling up outside an imposing building with people in bandages smoking outside the door. Mai blinked, thinking she'd lost some time there, and then remembered only the clicking of her own heels and, stumbling and wrenching her arm away when someone tried to help her up.

"… _**And that scares you…"**_

"Where's Valon?" she demanded.

"Who?" A nurse with a blonde ponytail looked blankly at her. She had a cotton swab in her hand and Mai jerked her head black slightly when she realised it had her own spit on it.

"I wasn't assaulted like _that_!"

The nurse glanced up at something behind Mai's shoulder; perhaps a poster detailing what to do when a doctor wasn't around to provide authority. She didn't look much older than Anzu and there was a nervous quiver to her bow-shaped lips, which struck Mai as more appropriate on a magazine cover than in a hospital. Maybe the doctor was supposed to be doing this and she was covering for him. "Uh, it's standard procedure."

Mai took a breath. "Where's Valon? The guy I was with – the ambulance brought him in before me. He was all cut up and bleeding. Brown spiky hair," she waved a hand way above her head, "really big hair, blue eyes – except they wouldn't have been open. Bloody shirt. Uh," she became conscious of the fact she didn't know his surname. Come to that, she didn't even know if Valon was his real name. "_Really_ big hair."

"Are you family?" asked the nurse.

"No, but-"

"I'm sorry, but we only release information to family members. Now if you'll just tip your head back for me we can get these tests done, then you can speak to the officers outside who're being so patient."

Mai pushed her hand away. "I want to know if Valon's okay."

"I'm sorry, Miss, but we can't release-"

"I don't give a damn about your procedures! He has no family. He doesn't have anyone except-" She stammered to a halt. "He doesn't have anyone except me and his other friends." She licked her lips. When did they get so dry? "He saved my life today. I have a right to know whether he's going to die because of it."

The nurse looked helplessly around as though willing someone to appear and speak to the aggressive woman who wouldn't do what she was told. Perhaps she honestly _didn't_ know anything about Valon, but her manner said she wouldn't go and find out what Mai wanted to know, either.

"… _**But I did say yes, so it's easier to just hate me for giving into the temptation instead of you, right?"**_

"Please," Mai added, despising herself for sounding so needy but not able to stop the emotion squeezing in at the edges, like light creeping around a closed door.

The nurse was saved by a cry. "Mai!" Anzu dashed in, tried to hug Mai and then pulled back immediately. A look of horror stretched over her features. As ever, Anzu's face was a study in unprotected expressions. She couldn't keep her emotions to herself if she locked them in a steel box and tossed it into the canal. "OhmygoshI'msorry! Are you hurt? Did I hurt you some more? I'm sorry!"

Mai shook her head, grateful to see a familiar face. "I just cut my arm a little." She raised it.

Anzu's eyes widened "That looks nasty. And that bump on your head is practically fuchsia!"

"Huh?" Mai gingerly felt her forehead and winced when her fingers touched a tender swelling. "Ow!"

"You mean you didn't know about that?" Anzu was obviously worried by this. Mai wondered how much of the situation she knew. She looked like she'd expected to find Mai beaten, bloodied and fighting for her life on an operating table.

"She was more concerned about her companion than her own concussion," the nurse provided tartly, reminding them she was still there. "Are _you_ family?" she asked, clearly noticing Anzu's hair and eye colour and comparing it with Mai's sketchy description of Valon. She obviously didn't think Mai capable of remembering things accurately, since Mai had just told her Valon _had_ no family.

No family.

Mai's parents died when she was young, but not so young she didn't remember them. She didn't see them all that much when they were alive anyway, so what she had were mostly hazy recollections that she ignored but kept close so she knew where _not_ to look. Her parents kept a busy lifestyle and she suspected they'd only reproduced because it was expected after a certain period of marriage. Image was a very large part of their lives. However, amongst other things she remembered the feel of her mother's hand on her forehead one night when she couldn't sleep, the sound of her singing when she dressed for another charity ball and her father's gruff voice emanating from behind a mountain of tax returns in his study. She thought she also remembered a trip to the beach not long before they died, which her mother spent on the phone to her agent and her father spent totting up expenses in his head.

There were two little kids on the beach too that day, building sandcastles and splashing in the rock pools. They called each other brother and sister, though the beach was empty of any adults who looked like them – they didn't even look like each other, the girl a wispy brunette with something of the infirm about her, the boy a hearty blonde tyke with snot stains on his bare wrist. Even in the brief window Mai saw them they seemed so devoted to each other that she, there with both parents but totally alone, ached for a closeness like theirs.

Then her mother and father died, leaving her truly alone in a world they'd chosen, but which rasped along Mai's skin like being brushed with the gentle fronds of mould on old meat. She chose self-imposed loneliness rather than being marooned someplace where she had no control over her life, confusing her surviving relatives by heading for Europe, a working life and, eventually, the Duel Monsters circuit. Mai claimed her own place in the world, but she'd used memories of her childhood to teach her what she _didn't_ want first.

She wondered whether Valon remembered his parents. She wondered how young he was when they died and how many orphanages he'd been through before he ended up with Sister Mary Clarence. She wondered whether he had hazy recollections of his mother and father the way she did; memories sustained mostly by faces in photos.

Suddenly, against all reason, she wanted to know more about him. She wanted to know stupid little facts – his favourite food, what books he liked to read, if any, what he thought about traffic and tempura and Hello Kitty. She wanted to know a thousand things she'd never be able to know if he died. She could ask Amelda and Raphael for bare facts, commission Otogi for a research project to check official records and see if his story about Edogawa was true, but she wanted personal details to soften the hard angles that made up the skeleton of a life half-known. She wanted a window into his life of the kind she'd kept firmly bolted up until that moment.

"_**... I know why you don't like me ..." **_

She wanted what he'd offered and she'd rejected – and what it might now be too late to have. She wanted a human connection.

"… _**But I'm not a bad guy, Mai…"**_

"Mai!" Yuugi and Ryou were coming towards her. "Anzu!"

"I'm sorry, but I can't allow you to-" the nurse began. She seemed small and inadequate against the irresistible tide of their emotions. It was like a physical _force_ that swept in and over everyone, squashing protest in the fight for air that wasn't clumped with such concentrated feelings. All their combined anxiety and affection welled up and carried them along like a tidal swell, washing away objections in its wake.

Yuugi especially didn't so much wear his heart on his sleeve as slap it on a bull's-eye and dangle it around his neck. Ryou was more reticent, but intensity burned in his gaze when he reached Mai and he actually touched her hand in concern. For Ryou, who had been made wary of physical contact after gaining a circle of scars on his chest, this was the equivalent of a rugby-tackle-hug.

Yuugi fired off questions until Mai held out a hand to stop him. "I'm okay," she told them all. "Honestly. I got a little banged up but it's nothing serious. I don't even have any stitches. Stop fussing."

"Why am I not surprised to hear you say that?" The last member of their group entered. Otogi wore his habitual smirk, but there was genuine concern in his stark green eyes. Otogi always radiated a maturity that made it easy to forget he was the same age as the other three. Car keys in his hand bespoke what had kept him

The blonde nurse looked like she wanted to just throw up her hands and go see a simpler patient. "I really must insist-"

"Wait, did you say companion?" Anzu broke in. She swivelled her gaze to Mai. "You were with someone? When you called you said you were on your own in your car."

Mai sighed. "I was attacked. Valon kind of came to my rescue. He was hurt." She had time to prepare the unconcern in her voice – not quite coldness but not the pathetic hitch of earlier.

"Hurt?" Yuugi echoed. "How hurt?"

"Pretty badly," Mai admitted. "They took him away in an ambulance." She hesitated. Just like it was easy to forget Otogi's true age, Yuugi radiated puppyish innocence despite all he'd been through. There was always a compulsion to soften the blow around him, as though he might break if exposed to too many harsh truths. Mai shook off the instinct. Yuugi was no stranger to heartache. He wasn't a porcelain figurine that needed coddling, he was a person and understood how the world worked far more acutely than first impressions of him might suggest. "He lost a lot of blood. He was going into shock when I was with him and they rushed him back here before bringing me in. I haven't seen him since."

"Oh no!" Yuugi immediately turned to the nurse. "Is he okay? Is he here? Can we see him?"

She looked like she wanted to snap, but then she looked at Yuugi's _really_ big hair. "Family?"

"Nu-uh."

"Then no. Now will all of you please clear out so I can-?"

"So that's why you were saying please when I came in," Anzu said, staring at Mai in a way that made her feel very uncomfortable. "They wouldn't tell you anything either, huh?" Her eyes were soft blue, but had a steely satisfaction in them that reminded Mai far too much of Yami after a victory.

"As I said, information is only released to family members," the nurse persevered. She didn't understand the significance of Anzu's look but it made Mai squirm.

"I wasn't worried," she insisted, conscious that not one of them believed her but unable to give up the role yet. Maybe she was revising her opinions of Valon, but admitting it out loud was a step for which her foot still hung in the air. It would be like standing on a rooftop screaming 'I couldn't beat a teenager at a children's card game!'

"… _**You made me question everything, Mai…" **_

Mai dropped her eyes to her lap. "He made me ruin my new jacket," she said sullenly.

"… _**When I found you … it was like … like something inside me cracked open and all these … questions I'd been sitting on just … came out …" **_

"Who attacked you?" Otogi's voice was quiet but purposeful.

Mai phrased her answer carefully, not wanting to make problems for herself later by generating questions she couldn't or didn't want to answer. "He said his name was Gurimo."

She expected the name to curry blank stares, since Gurimo never formally introduced himself when they first met, but Anzu looked shocked. For a second she looked hard at an empty corner of the room. The others were nonplussed until she distractedly told them they should step outside and give Mai some space. The nurse sagged with relief that these annoyances were going to go away on their own, but before she could get back to work Anzu leaned close to Mai.

"Yami's gone to find Valon," she murmured. "He'll find out what's going on. I'm sure he's fine, but … well, he'll shove the guy's soul back into his body by force if he has to."

Mai tried an 'I-don't-care-either-way' expression but gratefulness seeped into it, staining it a much lighter colour than the indifferent grey she'd been aiming for.

Anzu smiled, but Mai could see she was worried. Anzu never had a chance to get to know Valon properly, but whatever Yami told her had warmed her towards him. Anzu trusted Yami's opinion and Yami respected Valon. Mai respected Yami too, but his opinion of Valon didn't seem to extend the same way to her. Anzu was concerned for a guy she barely knew, yet rather than tick Mai off the way it would've done that morning, now it stirred an appreciative empathy. She needed validation that her mixed up feelings weren't a compete betrayal of herself. Anzu had suffered so much at the hands of Doma, and she didn't forgive everything out of hand the way Yuugi did. yet Anzu could still find it in herself to not only forgive Valon but to also count him as a friend.

She remembered the first time she met Anzu Mazaki at Duellist Kingdom. They hadn't exactly started out on brilliant terms, and yet now she was one of Mai's closest ever friends. Otogi, too, began their acquaintance as an antagonist, but you wouldn't know it to look at him now. He stood slightly behind Anzu, arms folded, a firm and protective presence. The strength of their friendship was in no way dented by unfavourable beginnings.

"_**... Somehow I'm going to win you over, Mai, even if it kills me…" **_

Mai hadn't done a complete turnaround. She wasn't about to be Valon's bestest-best-buddy, or walk down the aisle with him, or even forget the way he twisted Gurimo's arm into a half-Nelson so easily. However, she was willing to learn more about him – no, she _wanted_ to learn more about him. She wanted to know about the person he really was, and for that she was prepared to let herself worry over his safety now.

"Good," she said tightly. "Thank you."

Anzu shot her another compassionate look before ushering the others out.

"Did they catch the guy?" Otogi asked, sidestepping Anzu's outstretched arms, which had already caught Ryou and Yuugi in a clothesline tackle.

Mai shook her head. "Anzu!" she called abruptly.

"Huh?" As one, they all turned back to her.

"… _**You don't give up, do you?" **_

Mai hesitated. A mixture of feelings, thoughts and worries about the future swarmed inside her: Would Gurimo try another attack now he knew they'd all survived? Were Amelda and Raphael of the same mindset as him? What about the other Doma Riders, the ones who'd lost their duels before Battle City brought the Egyptian God Cards into the public eye? Were they recovering like Valon, or were they too bitter to let go, like Gurimo? Did they want revenge on those who had made a mocker of their sacrifices? Was Dartz's mission _really_ as dead as they'd thought? Questions whirled inside Mai like a concrete mixer full of blancmange and soot – slippery and discoloured too thoroughly to be recovered.

"… _**You never give up, even when the chips are down. You always find a way to pull yourself back from the edge and come out fighting…"**_

Mai's head hurt. Her body throbbed with aches and pains, and she couldn't shake her mystifying worry for Valon.

"… _**We're similar in that respect …"**_

She met Anzu's look; blue eyes half curious, half troubled by this unforeseen turn of events.

" … _**We're survivors…"**_

"Next time I agree to go out for coffee, make me change it to karaoke instead."

Anzu smiled. God, how Mai had missed that smile when the girl's soul was stolen. Yami hadn't smiled at all during that time, and those incidences she'd _ever_ seen him smile it was a triumphant, imperial thing. Anzu's smile was all warmth in comparison. Valon had helped to bring that smile back. He'd fought and hurt and sacrificed so a girl he'd never, actually, met – not really – would be able to smile properly again.

"… _**When we were fighting Dartz I promised I'd always be there when you need me, right?"**_

And in that instant Mai knew she would be the first to greet him when he woke up. She'd sneak into whatever room they had him in and hide behind the curtain like a kid playing hide and seek if she had to, but she would be there when he opened his eyes – and she was convinced he _would_ open his eyes because he was right. Galling as it was to admit it, they were the same.

They were survivors.

He would survive because he had to, because she needed him to and he had an awful habit of being around when she needed him, even when she didn't realise it. He would survive because she needed to say what she should've said from the very beginning.

_Thank you … my friend._

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_**Fin.**_

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_Home is a feeling I buried in you._

-- From _Breathe_ by Melissa Etheridge.

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**Side-flings, Homages and Downright Rip-offs**

_**It was a new jacket from Long Tall Sally, which she'd had to special order over the Internet and greeted with delight when it arrived in the mail.**_

-- Long Tall Sally is a specialist fashion house that caters to tall women (5'8'' and over) and does a brisk trade online by re-proportioning and lengthening existing designs and shipping them all over the world. Since Mai is 5'9'' and obviously cares about her appearance I reckon she'd be pleased to discover it and delighted to shop there.

"_**You need to stay warm. I have a blanket in the trunk for if I ever broke down while it was snowing-"**_

-- Me too! Everyone should do this, by the way: have an emergency kit in the back of your car for if bad weather and/or an accident lays you up at the side of the road.

_**No sooner had she thought this then they were pulling up outside an imposing building with people in bandages smoking outside the door.**_

-- I have, unfortunately, spent a lot of time in and around various hospitals and this is a recurring thing I've spotted. It never ceases to amaze me how much some people will go through to get a cigarette. Maybe it's a British thing (and I think it may have been stopped with some new rules now), but I saw it all over the country (including in Wales, when I accompanied a pupil to Bangor Hospital on a school trip, and in Scotland when my wonderful father got us utterly lost and we spent an entire morning driving around hospital buildings instead of going to Scone Castle) and _everyone_ I spotted glared at me like I was going to take their little white stick away from them. I'm not a smoker, but I'm not going to rob the infirm just so I can gain a couple more inches for my soapbox. The most memorable time for me was a woman who carted her own IV with her, after detaching her own catheter because she felt she knew better than the doctors about how read she was to move around. You can imagine what happened when she was halfway through her smoke.

… _**What he thought about traffic and tempura and Hello Kitty.**_

-- Tempura (てんぷらor 天麩羅,) is a classic Japanese dish of deep fried battered vegetables or seafood. Never tried it myself, since working in a chip shop as a teen put me off deep-fried food for life, but I'm told it's quite nice.

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_**Reviews heartily appreciated!**_

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